It’s that time of the year again. Every December, people* around the world feel compelled to summarize the year’s events by making “best/worst of” lists. In the last two days I’ve read about the 20 Best Movies of 2009, the 7 Worst Fashion Disasters of 2009, the 10 Most Shocking Reality TV moments of 2009, and of course National Geographic’s essential Best Adventure Gear of 2009.
Now, I do love a good list. But if there’s anything I love more than a good list, it’s being a contrarian. I would be entirely dissatisfied with myself if all I did here was compile a list of the best tennis moments of 2009. My devoted followers would surely find this neither original nor particularly interesting. So instead I will combine my love of lists with the one thing that I love even more than being a contrarian: making fun of Andy Roddick.
Behold, 75 events more likely to happen in 2010 than Andy Roddick winning a second Grand Slam title (in order of most to least likely):
- Rafael Nadal wins the French Open
- Novak Djokovic disrobes after a match
- Juan Martin Del Potro wins his first Masters title
- Roger Federer wins at least one major
- Novak Djokovic disrobes during a players’ party
- Someone compares Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to Mohammed Ali
- Patrick McEnroe predicts that Andy Roddick will win a Grand Slam title in 2010
- Rafael Nadal wins a major other than the French Open
- Andy Murray wins the calendar Grand Slam on his Xbox
- Roger Federer retains the number one ranking
- Gael Monfils injures himself during a post-match break-dance celebration
- Novak Djokovic disrobes during his stint in a Serbian television miniseries
- Nikolay Davydenko makes a Grand Slam final
- Justine Henin completes the career Grand Slam
- Juan Martin Del Potro’s eyebrows converge
- Svetlana Kuznetsova makes a major final without playing a match on a show court
- Novak Djokovic disrobes while meeting Prince Albert of Monaco
- Gilles Simon discovers that Gap Kids sells clothes that fit him
- Fabrice Santoro un-retires
- Elena Dementieva finally wins her first major
- Fernando Verdasco invents an entirely new hairstyle
- David Nalbandian beats every player in the top ten but still doesn’t win a major
- Andy Roddick fires Larry Stefanki but then realizes that he has run out of coaches to work with, so he unsuccessfully attempts to hire Roger Federer
- Martina Navratilova returns to professional tennis to win two more mixed doubles Slam titles
- Richard Gasquet symbolically starts wearing his hat forwards (but no one knows what it symbolizes)
- Mikhail Youzhny is revealed to be a KGB agent
- Venus Williams begins wearing an eye patch purely as an accessory
- Jelena Jankovic elects to bring a stylist with her on court instead of a coach
- Marcos Baghdatis starts a match clean shaven and finishes the match with a full beard
- Kim Clijsters wins two more majors, including the U.S. Open while six month pregnant with her second child
- Novak Djokovic disrobes while attending the Moscow Ballet’s production of Peter and the Wolf
- Maria Sharapova plays an entire match without screaming (invalid if she finally bursts one of her vocal chords and is rendered permanently mute)
- Marat Safin gets a wildcard into the Kremlin Cup but is defaulted from his first match after smashing two racquets, mooning the crowd, and insulting the umpire’s mother
- Ivo Karlovic goes an entire match without hitting an ace
- Patty Schnyder appears on an infomercial extolling the virtues of orange juice
- Boris Becker gets married again in 2010
- Chris Evert gets married again in 2010
- Boris Becker marries Chris Evert in 2010
- Daniel Nestor switches nationalities to Serbian so that he can play with Nenad Zimonjic in Davis Cup while Zimonjic, oblivious to Nestor’s defection, becomes Canadian
- Roger Federer switches to a two-handed backhand
- Ana Ivanovic’s comeback is successful until she accidentally swallows her fist after winning a point
- Martina Hingis returns to tennis while Radek Stepanek simultaneously starts to slip down the rankings and Nicole Vaidisova climbs back up
- Kei Nishikori appears on the Japanese game show Ninja Warrior but falls victim to the treacherous Cliff Hanger obstacle
- Marion Bartoli quits tennis to start a dried pasta company
- Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling appear together on Spain’s version of Sesame Street to sing a duet entitled “Los Mejores Amigos Para Siempre”
- Nikolay Davydenko’s hair spontaneously grows back overnight
- The Italian Fed Cup team forms a female gang and terrorizes the tour by leaving severed racquet heads in the beds of their rivals
- Fernando Gonzalez transforms into a werewolf during a night match at the U.S. Open
- Serena Williams issues a full apology for her outburst at the U.S. Open
- Serena Williams carries through on her threat towards the lineswoman at the U.S. Open
- Novak Djokovic disrobes while on Celebrity Jeopardy!
- Maria Sharapova’s arm falls off during a match, revealing that she is a cyborg
- The WTA continues to allow Maria Sharapova to play, despite the revelation that she is a cyborg
- Caroline Wozniacki comes out with a Grammy-nominated hip-hop album
- An Englishman wins Wimbledon
- Novak Djokovic disrobes while giving a speech to the United Nations
- Serena Williams appears on a Mexican soap opera as an assassin with split personality disorder
- The Australian Open is cancelled when New Zealand launches an attack on Australia
- Victoria Azarenka legally changes her name to Esmeralda Panini
- James Blake completely retools his game to become the new Fabrice Santoro
- Lleyton Hewitt’s acquires bionic legs and wins the Australian Open
- Vera Zvonareva wakes up one morning to discover that she is fluent in Portuguese
- A pack of dingoes is set loose on the Australian Open grounds and Mary Carillo is eaten
- One of the Bryan twins is believed to have gone missing until it is discovered that there was really only one Bryan the whole time and that the second brother was just an illusion created by mirrors placed strategically on court
- Dinara Safina wins three of the four Grand Slams but doesn’t end the year as number one
- John Isner goes into a sauna in Finland and emerges 4 ¾ inches shorter
- John Isner’s missing inches are enigmatically added to Arnaud Clement’s height (but Clement still isn’t tall enough to go on all the rides at Euro Disney)
- Andre Agassi atones for his illicit drug use by returning all of his prize money to the ATP
- Billie Jean King and Elton John reveal that they are in fact the same person
- Sam Querrey is named People magazine’s "Sexiest Man Alive"
- Dijana Djokovic admits that Novak isn’t as good as Roger Federer
- John McEnroe goes the entire year without uttering the phrase “You cannot be serious!”
- Pete Sampras comes out with a new autobiography revealing that during his career he frequently partied with the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince (when he was still known as Prince), Tim Burners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web), and a Katherine Hepburn impersonator (or possibly the real Katherine Hepburn)
- Dick Enberg says something intelligent
- Novak Djokovic enters a night club in Poland and doesn’t disrobe
*This excludes the following cultures who celebrate the New Year at different times: the Chinese (Jan. 21-Feb. 21), Australian Aboriginals (Oct. 30), and the Babylonians (March).
