This year was like no other, and that was true in tennis as well. The French Open was played in the fall, the U.S. Open was played without fans, and for the first time since World War II, Wimbledon was not played at all. Amid all this disruption, the world of men’s tennis was at least able to preserve a modicum of order: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal still finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the world, Alexander Zverev’s double faults still prevented him from winning a Grand Slam, and Nick Kyrgios still insulted other players on Twitter. Oh, and Nadal still won the French Open. Plus ca change…
Player of the Year: Rafael Nadal
Men’s tennis this year had the character of a split decision. Djokovic won the Australian Open, Nadal won the French Open, Dominic Thiem broke through at the U.S. Open to capture his maiden Slam, Andrey Rublev won the most ATP titles, and Daniil Medvedev had the best finish, winning the indoor Paris Masters in November and following it up with a scintillating title-winning run at the ATP Finals in London. There, he defeated Djokovic, Nadal, and Thiem, becoming the first player in 30 years to defeat the top three players in the world in a single tournament. With no clear favorite for Player of the Year in this most unusual of years, the edge goes to the player who accomplished this year’s most historic feat: Nadal, who tied Roger Federer’s record for most Grand Slams by a men’s tennis player (20) by winning his 13th French Open.
Breakout Player of the Year: Andrey Rublev and Diego Schwartzman (tie)
Rublev, the emotive, metalhead-looking Russian who bludgeons every ball as if it had said something about his mother, opened the season in January by winning two titles, and when play resumed after the lockdown, he picked up right where he left off, winning three more and qualifying for the year-end ATP Finals in London for the first time in his career. Rublev’s five titles in this lockdown-shortened season were the most of any player this year, and his late-season run helped him break into the Top 10 for the first time. When he defeated Thiem on Thiem’s home turf in Austria on the way to capturing his first Vienna Open, Thiem remarked that Rublev was probably the third-best player in the world at that moment. With all due apologies to Federer, who is currently out with a knee injury, Thiem may well have been right. Late-season disappointments at the Paris Masters and at the ATP Finals doused Rublev’s fire somewhat, and he still lacks a signature win against a top-five player at a Grand Slam. At only 23 years of age, however, he has plenty of time to make it happen. If he can add even a half-decent net game, he’ll be in a prime position to make the Next Gen Big Three (Thiem, Medvedev, and Stefanos Tsitsipas) into a Big Four.
At 28, Rublev’s co-recipient for this award, the scrappy Argentine Schwartzman, is an old man by comparison. As pure a ball-striker and as feisty a fighter as you’ll ever see, Schwartzman had an outstanding fall, netting a win against Nadal on clay, making his first Masters 1000 final at the Italian Open in Rome, and making his first Grand Slam semifinal at the French Open in October, when he beat the favored Thiem in a five-set epic. Schwartzman’s autumn excellence propelled him into the Top 10 and the ATP Finals for the first time in his career.
Match of the Year: French Open final — Rafael Nadal def. Novak Djokovic, 6-0, 6-2, 7-5.
Most people tuning into this match between the top players in the world — and the two greatest players of the past decade — were expecting another epic Nadal-Djokovic five-set battle royale. Instead, we were served something almost as special: the tennis equivalent of a perfect game. Nadal had come into this year’s unusual fall French Open somewhat wary about having to play with fewer fans, cooler temperatures, and a new, slightly lower-bouncing ball, which many supposed would hurt Nadal, who relies on his high-bouncing topspin forehand. But Nadal still managed, as he loves to say, to “find solutions,” and what spectacular solutions they were. In the final of a tournament that saw some of his best tennis, Nadal reached an even higher level, playing so perfectly that Djokovic, who had looked unbeatable for most of the year, struggled to win two of the match’s first 14 games. But after 20 Grand Slams and an incredible 13 French Opens, perhaps nothing should surprise us about the man from Mallorca. Vamos, Rafa — it never gets old.
Runner-Up: French Open semifinal — Schwartzman def. Thiem, 7-6 (7-1), 5-7, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
Shot of the Year: Mikael Ymer’s point-winning tweener in his first-round French Open loss to Novak Djokovic.
Runner-up: Matteo Berrettini’s forehand flick between the net post and the chair umpire in his second-round match at the U.S. Open vs. Ugo Humbert.
Second Runner-up: Reilly Opelka knocking Berrettini over with a body serve on match point in his Round of 16 victory at the Cincinnati Open.
Nick Kyrgios Moment of the Year: Announcing prior to the Australian Open that he would donate $200 for every ace he hit during the tournament to the Australian wildfire relief effort. Way to go, Nick. Now, if he could only be even half as generous on Twitter…
Bold Prediction for 2021: Italian Jannik Sinner, 19, currently world No. 37, will break into the ATP Top 15.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a writer from western Massachusetts and a Ph.D. candidate at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Wonder and Religion in American Cinema and the novel A Single Life.
