Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams celebrated seasons of epic proportions, claiming six of eight Grand Slam titles in a march to greatness dented only by two players producing once-in-a-lifetime performances.
Djokovic ended this year with 11 titles, 82 wins and just six defeats in a haul that included three of the four majors — the Australian Open, the US Open and Wimbledon.
His on-court earnings of US$21 million swelled his career total to a mind-boggling US$94 million, while the 28-year-old Serb now has 10 Grand Slam titles among his 59 career trophies.
Photo: AFP
Djokovic won six of the nine Masters and topped it off with a fourth successive end-of-season ATP World Tour Finals triumph in London.
“I’m very proud to have these achievements with my team,” Djokovic said. “It’s been a long season, but the best of my life.”
Djokovic reached the final of every tournament he played with the exception of his bow in Doha, where Ivo Karlovic stunned him in the quarter-finals.
Photo: AP
From then on it was one-way traffic — indoors, outdoors, hard court, clay and grass — the Australian Open, Masters in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Rome and then Wimbledon, US Open, Beijing, the Shanghai and Paris Masters and London.
However, Djokovic was still left with a case of “what might have been” thanks to a single-handed backhand blitz delivered by Stan Wawrinka at Roland Garros, where a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 defeat left him still seeking a first French Open and a career Grand Slam.
Wawrinka fired 59 winners past Djokovic, who finished runner-up for the third time in four years.
The defeat left him in tears.
Roger Federer, who has not added to his 17 majors since Wimbledon in 2012, continued to defy the critics.
Despite turning 34 in August, the Swiss reached the Wimbledon and US Open finals and handed Djokovic a rare defeat in the round-robin section of the ATP World Tour Finals before the Serb swept to a comfortable revenge in the title match.
The Swiss ended the year at No. 3 in the world and then ended his two-year partnership with coach Stefan Edberg.
Andy Murray finished No. 2 after a season that saw him win his first titles on clay, announce that he would become a father in February and lead Britain to a first Davis Cup in 79 years.
Meanwhile, 14-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal might have lost his iron-grip on the French Open and suffered his worst rankings slump in a decade, but there were encouraging signs of life as the year ticked away.
He made the finals in Basel and Beijing and the semi-finals in London before ending this year back at No. 5 in the world.
The men’s tour also endured a seedy controversy, when controversial Nick Kyrgios was fined for an ugly sex slur aimed at Wawrinka in Montreal.
What Wawrinka did to Djokovic in Paris in June, unheralded Italian Roberta Vinci did to Serena Williams in New York in September.
Williams was looking to complete the calendar Grand Slam and win a 22nd major.
She looked on course for a routine semi-final win when she took the first set 6-2 against the 32-year-old wafer-thin Italian who was playing in her first last-four clash at the highest level.
However, from nowhere, the world No. 43 raced through the next two sets for a famous win and a place in the final against fellow Italian and childhood friend Flavia Pennetta.
Pennetta triumphed for a first Grand Slam crown and promptly announced her retirement.
Williams was so stunned that she called time on her season, sitting out the last three months, an absence that helped Agnieszka Radwanska lift the WTA Championship title.
Williams was still the standout player of this year, winning five titles in all, including the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon.
Her record read 53 wins against just three losses, and she finished as the year-end world No. 1 for a fifth time and third consecutive season.
She also inflicted a 17th successive win over long-time rival Maria Sharapova in the Wimbledon semi-finals, with the Russian star then forced to sit out the US Open with a leg injury.
Sharapova recovered her fitness to make a rare Fed Cup appearance in last month’s final against the Czech Republic, but even her two singles wins were not enough to prevent a 3-2 win for the Czechs.
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