Less than 48 hours after sweeping to her 17th consecutive victory, Iga Swiatek was on Monday officially anointed as the world's best female tennis player.
At 20 years-old, Iga Swiatek is the first Polish player to rise to such heights, after winning her third crown of the season on Saturday following a straight sets destruction of the former world number one Naomi Osaka in the Miami Open final.
The 6-4, 6-0 triumph also furnished her with the accolade of only the fourth woman to win the "sunshine double" of titles in Indian Wells and Miami in the same year.
Germany's Steffi Graf pulled off the exploit twice in 1994 and 1996. In 2005, the Belgian Kim Clijsters won both events and Victoria Azarenka claimed the crowns in 2016.
However, Swiatek at two months shy of her 21st birthday, is the youngest of the four.
She is the first player to win the WTA circuit's first three events offering 1000 ranking points and, after Ashleigh Barty's retirement, she becomes the 28th different player to boast top spot since the rankings were computerized in November 1975.
☀️Sunshine double! pic.twitter.com/Q6UoVxJ451
— Iga Świątek (@iga_swiatek) April 3, 2022
"These weeks were so intense, I didn't really know if I would able to keep up with the streak," said Swiatek after her romp past Osaka.
"It's amazing for me that I could show mental toughness because my whole life I thought I could do more and sometimes I was losing and I didn't even know why.
"This season I feel like everything clicked so it's great and I am really happy."
After her dream start to the season, Swiatek announced she would withdraw from the clay court tournament at Charleston in the United States to recover from her exertions.
Swiatek's precocious success was echoed at the men's event where 18-year-old Carlos Alcarez beat the sixth seed Casper Ruud 7-5, 6-4 to lift his first title at a Masters 1000 - considered in terms of prestige to be just below the Grand Slam tournaments in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.
Alcarez, who became the youngest winner at the Miami Open in its 37-year history, jumped five places to 11 in the new ATP rankings released on Monday. Ruud, 23, from Norway, rises one place to seventh.
