There was no champagne in the yard. So as Matteo Berrettini embraced Jannik Sinner after Sinner’s victory over Alex de Minaur last month to clinch Italy’s first Davis Cup title in 47 years, their teammate Matteo Arnaldi did the next best thing : He swung a bottle of water and threw it at Sinner. and Berrettini.
Sinner, 22, finished the season with his 20th win in his last 23 races. This year, he had a 64-15 record, won four tournaments, reached the semifinals of Wimbledon and was runner-up at the ATP Finals in Turin, Italy. He had wins over the top three players – Novak Djokovic, whom he beat twice in two weeks, Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev. Starting 2023 at No. 15, he finished it at No. 4.
Djokovic was keen to lead Serbia to their second Davis Cup title. But in the semifinals, he fell to Sinner after squandering three match points and then teamed with Miomir Kecmanovic to lose the deciding doubles match to Sinner and Lorenzo Sonego. The loss sent Italy to the final, where they beat Australia.
Djokovic was devastated by the loss.
“For me, personally, it’s a huge disappointment because I take the responsibility, obviously having three match points, I’m so close to winning it,” he said after the match. “When you lose for your country, you know, the bitter feeling is even greater.”
It is ironic that the season began and ended with thrilling conclusions in the men’s and women’s team events. The Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup have been under siege in recent years as many of the game’s top players, including Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, avoided the historically thrilling and proud finals. due to scheduling conflicts. The US women lost early in the finals and the US men didn’t even qualify as one of the top eight teams.
Still, despite player send-offs and formation changes, both competitions provided some of the most impressive moments of the year.
Leylah Fernandez rode a wave of patriotic fervor, winning five matches to lead Canada to its first Billie Jean King Cup. Her teammate, the then 18-year-old Marina Stakusic, who had never won a WTA Tour match, became an overnight star when she won three matches against opponents ranked in the top 70.
If 2022 was called the season of King Carlos when Alcaraz went from No. 32 to No. 1 thanks to his US Open championship, then this season mostly belonged to Djokovic.
Considered by many in the game to be the greatest player of all time. The statistics prove it.
At 36, Djokovic had one of the best seasons of his career. For the third time since 2015, he has reached the finals of all four majors without winning a Grand Slam.
In January, a year after being kicked out of Australia for refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, 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 injured for most of the season, Djokovic won his third French Open in June by beating Alcaraz and Casper Rudd.
After falling to Alcaraz in a scintillating five-set Wimbledon final, Djokovic bounced back to beat Medvedev at the US Open to win his 24th major, surpassing Serena Williams. She is now just one win away from breaking the men’s and women’s major record held by Margaret Court for 50 years.
In total, Djokovic played just 12 tournaments in 2023 and won seven of them. He didn’t lose from mid-July until mid-November, when he fell to Sinner during the ATP Finals round robin. He then beat Sinner in the final after securing the year-end No. 1 ranking for a record-breaking eighth time.
Alcaraz, who won six titles in 2023 on three different surfaces and reached the semifinals at the French Open and the US Open in addition to his Wimbledon win, finished the year at No. 2. But he was honest after losing to Djokovic in the semi-finals in Turin.
“I’m not at his level on an indoor court,” the 20-year-old Alcaraz said in November. “He has shown why he is the best player in the world. I need to practice more to become a better player.”
With his 66 wins, Medvedev led the ATP in match wins. He won 19 in a row and reached the finals at Indian Wells and the Miami Open, which he won. He also won in Rome and reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and was runner-up to Djokovic at the US Open. He finished the year ranked No. 3.
Two first-timers – Americans Ben Shelton and Chris Eubanks – used their big smiles and incredible forehands to wrap the sport in a giant bear hug. Shelton, about two years removed from leading the University of Florida to an NCAA championship, reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. He then reached the semi-finals of the US Open before falling to Djokovic. Eubanks, another former collegian, upset Cameron Norrie and Tsitsipas to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals.
There was no shortage of exciting stories between the women. Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka spent the season battling for tour supremacy.
Sabalenka, just a year removed from serving woes so severe she resorted to sneaking serves during matches, won her first major title at the Australian Open on a day she called the “best of my life”. He won the No. 1 ranking after reaching the final of the US Open.
“It was amazing to see Sabalenka, who was basically laughed off the same court a year earlier, face those demons and take charge,” Lindsay Davenport, a three-time major winner and former No. 1, said by phone last month. .
Swiatek took her third French Open and won six titles. However, she faltered at both Wimbledon and the US Open before regrouping at the WTA Finals, grabbing the year’s No.1 from Sabalenka by beating her and Pegula to take the title. Pegula, for her part, was one of only two players, along with No. 4 Elena Rybakina, to record multiple wins over Swiatek this season.
Marketa Vondrousova, who endured long stretches away from the game due to two wrist surgeries, became the first ever women’s Wimbledon winner when she beat Ons Jabeur in the final.
But it was Gauff and her wise-beyond-the-years demeanor that transcended the sport in a way that only Williams has. When Gauff, 19, beat Sabalenka in three sets to win the US Open, the nontennis world, including former first lady Michelle Obama, went into a frenzy. In her acceptance speech, Gauff, who has struggled early in the season, addressed her naysayers.
“Thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me,” Gauff said. “To those who thought they were putting water on my fire, you really put gas on it.”
It was the kind of bold statement that left even former big winners stunned. One of them was Davenport, who admitted that she was in tears while doing match commentary on TV.
“For me, the story of the year was Coco,” Davenport said. “Players come once in a generation. When you have all the expectations on you at 12 and 15 and you’re able to handle everything and then raise your game to win, then you’re really something special.”
