There was no champagne courtside. So when Matteo Berrettini hugged Jannik Sinner last month after Sinner’s win over Alex de Minaur to secure Italy’s first Davis Cup title in 47 years, teammate Matteo Arnaldi did the next best thing. He shook the water bottle and poured it on Sinner. And Berrettini.
Sinner, 22, finished the season with 20 wins in his last 23 games. This year, he compiled a record of 64-15, won four tournaments, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and finished runner-up at the ATP Finals in Turin, Italy. He beat three top-ranked players: Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev, whom he had beaten twice in two weeks. In 2023, it started in 15th place and finished in 4th place.
Djokovic wanted to lead Serbia to its second Davis Cup title. However, in the semifinals he fell to Sinner after wasting three match points and teamed with Miomir Kecmanovic to lose to Sinner and Lorenzo Sonego in the deciding doubles match. With this loss, Italy advanced to the final, where they beat Australia.
Djokovic fell into despair after losing.
“Personally, it’s a big disappointment because I take responsibility for it, because obviously we had three match points and we were so close to winning,” he said after the game. “When you lose for your country, the bitterness becomes even greater.”
It is ironic that the season began and ended with exciting endings in the men’s and women’s team events. The Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup have been under siege in recent years, with many of the game’s best players, including Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, avoiding the historically heart-pounding and pride-inspiring finals. Due to scheduling conflicts, the U.S. women’s team lost early in the finals, and the U.S. men’s team did not even make the top eight.
Still, despite the player exodus and the merry-go-round format change, both competitions provided some of the most impressive moments of the year.
Leylah Fernandez rode a wave of patriotic enthusiasm to victory in five matches to lead Canada to its first-ever Billie Jean King Cup. Her teammate, then 18-year-old Marina Stakusic, who had never won a WTA tour match, became an overnight star with three wins against opponents ranked in the top 70.
If 2022 is considered King Carlos’ season, in which Alcaraz rose from 32nd to 1st thanks to his win at the US Open, this season was mostly Djokovic’s season.
He is considered by many within the game to be the greatest player of all time. Statistics prove it.
Djokovic, 36, is having the best season of his career. He advanced to the finals of all four major tournaments for the third time since 2015, narrowly missing out on achieving a Grand Slam.
In January, a year after being expelled from Australia for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, Djokovic returned to Melbourne Park and won his 10th Australian Open title, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final. With 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal out injured for most of the season, Djokovic defeated Alcaraz and Casper Ruud to win his third French Open title in June.
After losing to Alcaraz in the five-set final at Wimbledon, Djokovic defeated Medvedev at the US Open and beat Serena Williams to win his 24th major title. He is now just one win away from breaking Margaret Court’s 50-year-old men’s and women’s singles major record.
Djokovic has played in just 12 tournaments in 2023 and has won seven of them. He remained undefeated from mid-July to mid-November, when he lost to Sinner in the round robin portion of the ATP Finals. He then defeated Sinner in the final after securing the year-end number one ranking for a record eighth time.
Alcaraz, who won six titles on three different surfaces in 2023 and reached the semifinals at the French Open and US Open, ended the year in second place in addition to her Wimbledon win. But after losing to Djokovic in the semifinals, he was candid. In Turin.
“I’m not at that level on an indoor court,” Alcaraz, 20, said last November. “He showed why he is the best player in the world. He needs to practice more to become a better player.”
Medvedev led the ATP league in wins with 66 wins. He won 19 games in a row and reached the finals and won the Indian Wells and Miami Opens. He also won in Rome, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and was runner-up to Djokovic at the US Open. He ended the year in third place.
Two new players, Americans Ben Shelton and Chris Eubanks, with big smiles and huge forehands, wrapped the sport in a giant hug. About two years removed from leading the University of Florida to an NCAA Championship, Shelton advanced to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. He then advanced to the semifinals at the US Open but lost to Djokovic. Eubanks, another former college student, reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon by defeating Cameron Norrie and Tsitsipas.
There was no shortage of compelling storylines among the women. Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka have had a fierce season competing for tour supremacy.
Just a year after being forced into so much service, Sabalenka served secretly during a match and won her first major title at the Australian Open, a day she called “the best moment of my life.” She reached the final of the US Open and topped her rankings.
“It was amazing to see Sabalenka, who was basically laughed at on the same court a year ago, take responsibility for facing those demons,” Lindsay Davenport, a three-time major champion and former No. 1, said in a phone call last month. said.
Swiatek won his third French Open, taking his tally to six titles. However, she faltered at both Wimbledon and the US Open before regrouping at the WTA Finals, where she and Pegula took the year-end No. 1 ranking away from Sabalenka for the title. Pegula was one of only two players to have multiple wins against Swiatek this season, along with fourth-place Elena Rybakina.
Marketa Vondrousova, who had been sidelined for an extended period of time due to two wrist surgeries, became the first unseeded women’s Wimbledon winner after beating Ons Jabeur in the final.
But it was Gauff and her smarts that transcended the sport in a way only Williams could. When the 19-year-old Gauff won the US Open by beating Sabalenka in three sets, the non-tennis world went wild, including her former first lady, Michelle Obama. Gauff, who struggled early in the season, addressed those who doubted her in her acceptance speech.
“I’m thankful for the people who didn’t believe me,” Gauff said. “To those of you who thought you were pouring water on my fire, you were actually adding gas to the fire.”
It was a bold statement that shocked even past major winners. One of them was Davenport, who admitted she had tears streaming down her face while doing her commentary on television.
“The story of the year for me was Coco,” Davenport said. “Players come along once in a generation. If you can handle everything and win the game at 12 and 15 with all the expectations placed on you, you are truly special.”
