Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
Well, it's official; there's nothing left to look forward to in pro tennis until the start of the new year. The good news is that the new year is less than a month away, and your loved ones would kill you if being glued to the tube, watching tennis, kept you from decorating the Christmas tree or getting your holiday shopping done.
We do have time, though, to review 2007. We'll look at the men today, and the women on Monday. The main story of the year has that "Groundhog Day" feel, because it's the same as the main story in 2006: Roger Federer dominates, winning every Grand Slam but the French Open. But unlike last year, when the subplots were thin (Can Roger win on clay?), in 2007 the story became a little more complex and compelling.
First off, "Can Roger win on clay?" morphed into, "Can Rafa (Rafael Nadal) win at Wimbledon?" That's a big difference, and a tribute to the strides Nadal made on surfaces other than clay in '07. That subplot came perilously close to becoming the main story-line, too, as Nadal pushed Federer to the limit in a five-set Wimbledon final for the ages.
Those who despair of Federer's domination of the men's game seem to forget that in early July, we were a point or two away from all hail breaking loose in the form of a Nadal victory at Wimbledon. So the Wimbledon final ranks as both the highlight of 2007 -- and the anti-turning point that kept the year from having more plot twists than a Robert Ludlum book.
Another subplot that captured the imagination was the emergence of Novak Djokovic as a guy who walks the walk; the callow, sometimes outspoken Serbian with the chia pet hair and sweetest service motion in the game matured in '07, positioning himself as a contender at the majors next year. Like Nadal, Djokovic closed the gap on Federer this year. It's funny, but which is a more seismic headline: "Djokovic Beats Federer in U.S. Open Final" or "Djokovic Wins U.S. Open?"
You see what the guy's up against …
Some of the subplots we anticipated this year went nowhere: Richard Gasquet once again did a brief impersonation of a Grand Slam contender. David Nalbandian, written out of the script for most of the year, stole some of the late scenes with big wins over big players in big events in the fall. David Ferrer suddenly appeared on the radar. (It wouldn't be pro tennis if there weren't at least one Spanish guy in the top 10 whom even serious fans couldn't pick out of a police lineup.)
Fernando Gonzalez got to the Australian Open final in January, then spent the rest of the year convincing us that it was all some kind of big, terrible mistake. Andy Murray kept getting hurt, and Marat Safin allegedly showed up in Canada and applied for asylum (he's a conscientious objector against playing tennis). Nikolay Davydenko finally found a way to fling off the mantle of obscurity, although not in a good way.
Andy Roddick? Well, he won the Davis Cup for the U.S. (with help from the Bryan brothers and James Blake), so he couldn't care less about Federer, Nadal or Djokovic. Not until January, anyway.
Peter Bodo
