2010 Year in Review

The next year for which I’ll be posting my tennis rankings is 2010. In order to set the stage for those rankings, here is the narrative description of the 2010 season.

2009 had closed with Roger Federer having returned to his familiar #1 ranking in the world, after having lost it to Rafael Nadal during 2008. ’10 began with a slight hiccup for the great Swiss, as he lost to Nikolay Davydenko in the semifinals of a minor but lucrative tournament in Qatar; Davydenko went on to defeat Nadal in the final to take one of the season’s first titles. The lead-up to the Australian Open also saw top-20 players Andy Roddick and Marin Cilic win trophies.

In the year’s first Slam, Federer dropped the first set he played, but then ran off twelve in a row to reach the quarterfinals untroubled. His opponent was Davydenko once again, and this time Federer dispatched him in four sets, thereby making his twenty-third consecutive Grand Slam semifinal. (This is a record, and is a record by a LOT.) Federer’s side of the draw also included former Australian champ Novak Djokovic, who also reached the quarters while losing only one set. The third seed was less fortunate at that stage, however, as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who Djokovic had defeated in the final of his lone Slam victory to that point, upended him in five sets.

The bottom of the bracket was, of course, headlined by Nadal, who was the defending champion in Melbourne. He too steamrolled his way into the quarterfinals, although he did lose as many sets as Federer and Djokovic combined en route (so, two). He then encountered fifth seed Andy Murray, who had dropped no sets to that point. The combination of Murray and an injury proved too much for the Spaniard, who withdrew from the match when down two sets and 3-0 in the third; the loss left Nadal without any active Slam titles to his name for the first time since before he won his first major in 2005 and dropped him behind Djokovic in the ATP rankings. The other quarter in Nadal’s half was led by the ascendant Juan Martin del Potro, the US Open champion from the year before. The young Argentine made it through the first three rounds, albeit with some difficulty – none of the victories were in straight sets, and his second-round win over James Blake went to 10-8 in the fifth. Marin Cilic, seeded fourteenth, upset del Potro in the fourth round, then edged through a five-set win over Roddick in the quarters and found himself in his first Slam semi.

Federer dispatched Tsonga in routine straight sets; Murray required four to oust Cilic. That sent the Brit to his second career Slam final, which would come against the same man who’d hammered him in his first at the 2008 US Open. Federer repeated the feat, triumphing in straight sets with a 13-11 tiebreak in the third. It was Federer's fourth Australian Open title, tying the Open Era record, and his sixteenth Slam overall, extending the record he already held.

February brought its annual frenzy of small events. Cilic won his second title of the year in his home country’s tournament at Zagreb, continuing his strong start to the season. Juan Carlos Ferrero seized a pair of titles on South American clay, with David Ferrer grabbing one when the clay circuit moved up to Acapulco. Robin Soderling snapped up a title in Rotterdam, and Djokovic won the tournament in Dubai for the second year in a row.

The stars returned to the court for the pair of 96-man Masters events played in the US in March. At Indian Wells, Federer absorbed an early, closely-contested upset against Marcos Baghdatis, allowing Roddick a path into the semis. Murray was beaten by Soderling in the quarters, and Roddick edged the Swede in three sets to put himself in the final. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the bracket was thoroughly wrecked by twentieth-seeded Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, who upset #2 seed Djokovic in the fourth round and #3 seed Nadal in the semis. The final paired two of the biggest servers in the game, and thus it can hardly be considered a shock that it went to a pair of tiebreaks, with nary a break of serve to be found. Ljubicic prevailed in both breakers and seized his first career Masters title; the win would also prove to be the last of his ten career titles overall.

Indian Wells seemed to go about as well as possible for Roddick – and yet, the ensuing Miami went even better for the top American on the tour. He was placed in Djokovic’s quarter for this event, and the Serbian second seed lost his first match. The bracket having thus opened up for him, Roddick cruised into the semis without losing a set. There, he would face Nadal, who bested such familiar foes as David Nalbandian, Ferrer, and Tsonga on his way to the last four. Roddick lost the first set to the Spaniard, but rallied to win the next two and earn a place in his second consecutive Masters final. Meanwhile, in the top of the bracket, Federer took another early loss, this one to Tomas Berdych. Murray was also beaten early, allowing Soderling into the semis for the second tournament in a row. He lost at that stage once more, this time to Berdych, and Roddick defeated the Czech in straight sets to take the title.

Two weeks later, the Masters series shifted to the clay courts of Monte Carlo, the only optional Masters event on the calendar. The non-mandatory nature of the tournament thinned the field slightly, but it was still a formidable set of players (including countrymen Ferrero, Ferrer, and Fernando Verdasco) that Nadal blasted through while losing 14 service games and not a single set in five matches. Nadal did fail to win the ensuing event in Barcelona for the first time in several years, but only because he didn’t play; Verdasco would defeat Soderling for that title.

Nadal’s decision to skip one of his favorite events in his home country was likely related to the fact that the Rome Masters tournament was the next week; the 2010 schedule was not necessarily laid out well in all respects. Federer returned to the court in Rome, but his Masters struggles continued as he lost his first match to young Latvian Ernests Gulbis, who would proceed to make a surprising run to the semifinals. Nadal met and dispatched Gulbis at that stage, albeit with the loss of the only set he’d dropped to that point. Meanwhile, the bottom of the bracket saw the Spanish contingent helpfully eliminate the other likely threats to Nadal, with Ferrer beating both Murray and Tsonga and Verdasco dropping Djokovic. Ferrer then handled Verdasco in the semis before bowing out in straight sets against Nadal in the final.

After another week, the third and final clay court Masters tournament was played, this one coming in Madrid. Nadal returned to his customary second seed, albeit largely because Djokovic sat out the event, and romped into the final while dropping only a single set, dispatching opponents like Gael Monfils and Nicolas Almagro with ease. Federer, meanwhile, finally stirred from his post-Australian slumber, also making the final (going through Gulbis and Ferrer to do so). Once there, however, Federer too fell to the exceptional clay court prowess of Nadal, who with this victory was returned to second place in the rankings just in time for the French Open.

At this point, Federer still maintained a significant lead over Nadal in the rankings. But for the first time in five years, Nadal was coming into his favorite event without defending the title, and it was Federer who was clinging to the 2,000 points awarded the Roland Garros champion. Nadal stood to make significant gains if he could emerge with a victory – and so, for that matter, did Djokovic, who sat just behind Nadal.

Federer’s title defense started in promising fashion, as he cruised through the first four rounds without the loss of a set. On the bottom half of the bracket, Nadal did the same. Djokovic, seeded third and in Nadal’s side of the draw, dropped three sets total in the first four rounds but still made the quarters. Meanwhile, on Federer’s side, Murray was beaten in the fourth round by Berdych, who advanced to face Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny in the quarters.

Nadal defeated Almagro in straight sets in the round of eight. That was the only thing that went according to anyone’s expectations. Djokovic took a two-set lead against his opponent, Austrian Jurgen Melzer, and then proceeded to drop three consecutive sets and the match. Berdych blew Youzhny off the court, showing the kind of form that would have suggested him as a potential challenge for Federer in the semis – had Federer made it there. Instead, in a rematch of the previous year’s final, Sodeling defeated Federer in four sets. It was the great Swiss’s first loss before the semis at a Slam in six years, ending his unparalleled semifinal streak at 23.

It also left the door open for Nadal to grab the top spot in the world, and he did just that. Melzer went down to the Spaniard in straight sets. On the other side, Soderling defeated Berdych in five, setting up another rematch, this one a do-over of Nadal’s only loss at Roland Garros. Soderling was unable to pull off another miracle, falling 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. Nadal clinched the French Open without dropping a single set – not for the first time, by the way – and returned to the top spot in the rankings after an eleven-month absence.

Federer recovered from his defeat to make a run to the final at the grass event at Halle, falling to Lleyton Hewitt. Nadal, meanwhile, played the Queens Club tournament in London and lost to Feliciano Lopez after posting a pair of victories. The other top players in the draw – Djokovic, Murray, and Roddick – all joined Rafa in early defeats, with Sam Querrey eventually prevailing over Mardy Fish in an all-unexpected-American final. Another week of grass brought the schedule around to Wimbledon.

Thanks to its Grand Slam status, Wimbledon was not bound to the ATP rankings for seeding purposes, and therefore placed reigning champion Federer on the top line. He rewarded their confidence by losing his first two sets of the event to Alejandro Falla before rallying to capture that match and the next three. On the same side of the draw, Djokovic also required five sets to win his first match, and also sailed into the quarters thereafter. Coming from the bottom half, Nadal required a pair of five-setters to reach the round of eight, while Murray coasted in without dropping a set.

Nadal played Soderling yet again in the quarters, and handled him in four sets. Murray defeated Tsonga to earn a match against the world’s top player, but fell in straight sets to put Rafa in the final. Djokovic faced Yen-Hsun Lu, who had edged past Roddick a round earlier in five sets (with the fifth going to 9-7), and dispatched him easily.

Federer, on the other hand, lost in four sets to Berdych, making it two straight Grand Slam quarterfinal defeats after a string of 23 semis in a row. Berdych then defeated Djokovic in three before falling to Nadal in the final, giving the Spaniard his second Slam title in the space of a month.

July brought the top players the usual rest, allowing players like Fish and Almagro to snatch up smaller titles (they won two each in the month). A pair of slightly larger crowns went to Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan (who won Hamburg without losing a set and jumped from #82 to #37 in the rankings) and former #3 David Nalbandian (who won Washington and leapt from 117 to 45).

Nalbandian would then reach the quarterfinals in the Canada Masters event before falling to Murray, who went on to defeat Nadal in the semis and Federer (who was coming off of a semifinal win over Djokovic) in the final. The ensuing Cincinnati Masters tournament had a significantly less-distinguished set of semifinalists – Federer and Roddick were the only seeded players to reach the penultimate round, joined by Fish and Marcos Baghdatis. Federer defeated Fish in the final, thereby regaining the #2 spot in the rankings that he’d lost at Wimbledon, just in time for the setting of the US Open draw.

Nadal and Federer both started the year’s final Slam in outstanding form, neither dropping a set through their first five matches. Federer’s victories included Soderling and Melzer, while Nadal vanquished countrymen Lopez and Verdasco on the way to the last four. Despite a difficult five-set match against fellow Serb Viktor Troicki in the first round, Djokovic won through to the semis as well, trouncing Monfils in the quarterfinals. Murray, meanwhile, fell to Stanislas Wawrinka in the third round; Wawrinka fought through a five-set match against Querrey to reach the quarterfinals before Youzhny beat him in five to complete the semifinal pairings.

Nadal defeated Youzhny in straight sets to reach the final of a Slam without dropping a set for the second time in 2010. In the other semi, Federer and Djokovic put on a magnificent see-saw battle; Federer took the first and third sets 7-5, while Djokovic won the second and fourth 6-1 and 6-2, respectively. The final set ended with a 7-5 score as well, but it was the third-seeded Serb who emerged victorious, thereby keeping Federer and Nadal from their first US Open meeting (which, incidentally, still has yet to occur as of this writing). Djokovic took the second set against Nadal in the final, but could capture no more.

Nadal’s US Open victory finalized his career Grand Slam; it also sealed his first (and to date, only) three-Slam season, and gave him a lead of nearly 5000 points in the ATP rankings, effectively clinching his second #1 finish in three years. Not bad for a player who four months earlier had been fighting to reclaim the #2 spot.

After a brief respite, the world’s top players returned to the court in the Asian swing, which brought titles for Djokovic (in Beijing), Nadal (in Tokyo), and Murray (at the Shanghai Masters tournament, not losing a set and defeating Federer in the final). The tour closed on the indoor hard courts of Europe, where Federer finished strong with wins in Stockholm and Basel. Monfils, Melzer, and Ferrer also won titles leading into the Paris Masters event, which was taken by Soderling.

The World Finals were played two weeks later. This event had always given Nadal fits, but he got off to an exemplary start, defeating Roddick, Djokovic, and Berdych to go unbeaten in group play, then handling Murray in a close three-set match to make the final. Naturally, he met Federer there; wins over Ferrer, Murray, Soderling, and Djokovic had positioned the world’s #2 player with a chance to take another title at one of his favorite events. Federer prevailed in three sets, salvaging a final significant title from what was, if only by his opulent standards, a disappointing season.

With the individual tournaments in the books, the last remaining event was the Davis Cup final. The French team, led by Monfils, had cruised into the finals having lost only one rubber in the three preceding rounds. Meanwhile, Djokovic’s Serbian group squeezed in with a narrow victory over Berdych and the Czechs in the semis. The final opened with a Monfils victory over Janko Tipsarevic, which was countered when Djokovic defeated Gilles Simon. The French doubles team prevailed over their Serbian counterparts, leaving the Serbs in need of back-to-back singles wins on the last day of the event – and they got them, with Djokovic routing Monfils and Viktor Troicki hammering Michael Llodra. That last match highlights one of the nice features of the Davis Cup, which is that it gives lesser lights like Troicki and Llodra a chance to shine on a larger-than-normal stage. (Also, it gives us more chances to see guys like Djokovic play, which is never bad.)

By the absurdly hegemonic standards of the last decade or so in tennis, 2010 was actually a rather egalitarian season. It provided six different Slam finalists (Federer, Murray, Nadal, Soderling, Berdych, and Djokovic), with only Nadal managing a second appearance (and a third, of course). The year also saw a sextet of Masters champions in Ljubicic, Roddick, Nadal, Murray, Federer, and Soderling, and provided a flickering interruption of the recent Spanish preeminence in the Davis Cup. Federer and Nadal even made cameo appearances outside the top 2 in the ATP rankings.

But in the end, whatever small cracks seemed to appear in their facade of ceaseless dominance, Nadal and Federer still split the five biggest titles between themselves, and made it a sixth consecutive year holding down the top two spots in some order. Nadal had a particularly magnificent year, with his three majors won cementing his place among the all-time greats of the game. It remained their world, and the rest of the players would have to wait a bit longer for a chance to break through.