What the 2008 season has identified is a clearly defined top four in the world of Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray who- for the first time in a long while- are able to pick up the victory against each other on any given day, which can only be good for tennis.
Although Federer's procession to title after title had been a magnificent exhibition of his tennis genius, it's good to see that he now has challengers worthy of the name who genuinely feel they can beat him.
Below is a timeline produced using http://www.dipity.com/ of the 2008 ATP tennis season. It contains videos, photos and a mini-report on every tier one event (Grand Slams and Masters Series Events).
More or Less Competition?
What the timeline also shows however, is that although there are now more than two players who will be favourites to win a specific tournament, it is unlikely to be somebody from outside the top four, because they are now so far ahead of the competition. Indeed, in 2008 only two of the 14 tier one events were won by a player outside 'the big four'.
This creates a similar situation to the Premiership in football where the league will be won by one of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal. Although there is competition between these four, there is little competition when they face other teams in the league.
This raises the question will next year become boring and predictable?
Not if players like Gilles Simon, who exploded into the top 10 in the second half of 2008, can put together good tournament performances back-to-back. He proved that, with confidence high, good results against the best in the world are possible.
Few would have predicted not only that Federer would be knocked off top spot in 2008 by Nadal, but that he would be only two ranking points better off than Djokovic in third place and also that Murray would be so close to the three of them. It's just a shame that the Masters Cup was again a predictable end to the year as I blogged on last week.
Bring on 2009!
All videos on the timeline are provided by the ATP's YouTube channel, unless otherwise stated in the timeline.
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