It was a year like no other in the men’s game.
Novak Djokovic was unable to participate in two of the four grand slams. No ranking points were awarded at Wimbledon, from which Russian and Belarusian players were banned. Rafael Nadal climbed off the canvas in the most improbable manner. Roger Federer bade the sport a tearful farewell. Carlos Alcaraz won the US Open and became the youngest world No 1 in history. Daniil Medvedev, who inherited the top ranking from Djokovic in February, never really recovered from a soul-destroying defeat to Nadal in the Australian Open final.
Alcaraz was one of three men to occupy pole position in 2022, while three others fluffed the chance to claim it – a remarkable fact in itself, given that the last No 1 other than Djokovic, Nadal or Federer was Andy Murray in 2016. Among those who missed out were Nadal and clay-court specialist Casper Ruud, who reinvented himself as a hard-court specialist by reaching finals at the Miami Open, US Open and ATP Finals as well as (less surprisingly) Roland Garros. The third was Stefanos Tsitsipas, who reached the Australian Open semi-finals but won only five other matches at the majors. Go figure.
Nor were these the only tales of the unexpected. Nick Kyrgios made his first slam final at Wimbledon. Alexander Zverev looked capable of becoming only the third player to beat Nadal at the French Open, then suffered a gut-wrenching ankle injury that put him out for the remainder of the season. Matteo Berrettini underwent hand surgery, scuppering his clay-court campaign, and then fell victim to Covid before Wimbledon, wrecking his hopes of reaching a second consecutive final.
In their absence, others were not slow to fill the void. Taylor Fritz compiled the finest season of his career. Felix Auger-Aliassime finished the year at a career-high ranking of sixth, winning three titles in three weeks and making a pivotal contribution as Canada won the Davis Cup for the first time. And Holger Rune, Jack Draper and Lorenzo Musetti all made big breakthroughs.
So, after a season of ups and downs, who were the big winners in 2022?
Best player: Rafael Nadal
In a year when Rafael Nadal was beaten just once at the majors, it is a tribute to the excellence of Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz that the identity of the season’s standout player is even up for debate.
For Djokovic, it was a bittersweet campaign. On the one hand, a seventh Wimbledon crown and a record-equalling sixth ATP Finals title offered further evidence of his enduring greatness. Yet it was also a season of controversy for the Serb, whose decision to remain unvaccinated against Covid meant he was deported from Australia and unable to enter the US, ruling him out of two grand slams and four Masters 1000 events.
Djokovic’s problems were compounded by the ATP’s decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points: undisputed world No 1 at the start of the year, the 35-year-old eventually finished in fifth spot after missing out on 2,000 points. Not even a typically strong indoor season could alleviate the sense that 2022 might have yielded more.
The same cannot be said for Alcaraz, whose meteoric rise culminated with an exhilarating and dramatic run to a first major. The 19-year-old’s tally of five titles included impressive victories in Miami and Madrid – where he beat Nadal, Djokovic and Alexander Zverev in successive rounds – while his US Open triumph made him the youngest No 1 in history. The speed of his ascent, astonishing by any standard, is especially so when you consider it was only a year earlier that Alcaraz first announced himself to the world by reaching the last eight at Flushing Meadows.
Yet any appraisal of the spirited Spaniard’s year must take account of two caveats. First, he has yet to demonstrate consistency at the majors. Given his age, that is, of course, entirely understandable. Yet it also militates against naming him the season’s best player. Alcaraz’s deepest grand slam run beyond New York was a last-eight finish at the French Open, where Zverev avenged his crushing defeat in the Madrid final. For all his athletic brilliance and bewitching blend of power and finesse, the teenager is not yet ready to dominate in the manner of his predecessors.
Second, as Alcaraz himself has acknowledged, the absence of Djokovic for large chunks of the season, and the string of injuries suffered by Nadal, meant the circumstances were favourable for a major breakthrough. After surviving two five-set epics in a row to make the US Open final, even the indefatigable Alcaraz must have been relieved not to see one of the game’s all-time greats on the opposite side of the net.
Of course, Alcaraz was not the only Spaniard to make hay while the sun shone. Nadal too benefited from the absence of Djokovic, notably claiming his first Australian Open title in 13 years in the absence of the record nine-time champion. Yet Nadal did get the better of his rival on the one occasion the pair crossed paths, prevailing in four sets at Roland Garros to avenge his semi-final defeat of 12 months earlier. And while Djokovic’s season was limited by personal preference, Nadal’s was constrained by the more pernicious effects of persistent injury.
Ultimately, the facts speak for themselves. In a year blighted by a chronic foot injury, a fractured rib and an abdominal tear that curtailed his Wimbledon challenge and recurred at the US Open, Nadal won back-to-back majors to take his overall tally to 22, a men’s record. He compiled a career-best 20-match winning streak, and won 19 consecutive grand slam matches. He required daily anaesthetic injections to make it through the French Open, where he claimed a 14th title, and radiofrequency ablation treatment – the use of heat to destroy nerve fibres carrying pain signals to the brain – even to make the starting line at Wimbledon.
It was a monumental effort by any reckoning; from a player whose very future in the game looked doubtful at the turn of the year, it was nothing short of superhuman. Nadal made history while held together with sticky-back plastic and fairydust. Any of his rivals would gladly exchange their seasons for his.
Most improved player: Taylor Fritz
Since each step up the rankings ladder gets progressively tougher, any consideration of the year’s most improved player must take account of more than simply how many rungs were climbed. If quantity alone were all that mattered, Britain’s Jack Draper would be a shoo-in for this category after rising 223 places to end the year ranked 42nd. He would be closely followed by Holger Rune, the exciting young Dane who started the year at 103rd, but briefly broke the top 10 after defeating Djokovic to win his first Masters 1000 title in Paris last month.
Yet Draper and Rune, respectively aged 20 and 19, are at the beginning of their professional odysseys; at this stage, it would be more surprising if such a richly talented pair did not improve. The same cannot be said of Taylor Fritz. Hailed as the future of American men’s tennis since his teens, a billing he often struggled to live up to in his early years on tour, the former US Open junior champion has taken time to grow into his attacking game. But Fritz, encouraged by parents with an impeccable tennis pedigree – his mother, Kathy May, is a former top-10 player while his father, Guy, is a former pro and respected coach – has always believed he was on the right path. At the age of 25, his patience, conviction and exemplary work rate have been rewarded with the finest season of his career.
Having started the year ranked 23rd, Fritz finished in ninth spot after winning a maiden Masters title in Indian Wells, reaching a first major quarter-final at Wimbledon, and marking his ATP Finals debut with a run to the last four.
Yet his rise has been about more than just results. Witness the courage he showed in defying a badly twisted ankle to end Nadal’s unbeaten start to the year in the Indian Wells final. The determination that saw him bounce back from a bout of Covid to win the Japan Open, a result that secured his top-10 breakthrough. The self-belief he exuded to beat Nadal again in Turin, in the process avenging a heart-breaking five-set defeat to the injury-stricken Spaniard at the All England Club. The Californian always had the weapons to reach the top, but such moments spoke of a player who, mentally and emotionally, has come of age as a competitor.
To claim his place among the elite, Fritz took 14 of the toughest steps in tennis. He has demonstrated that he belongs at the top table – something his teenage rivals, for all the giant strides they have taken, have yet to do – and laid the foundations to achieve even more in 2023.
Most heart-warming moment: Alcaraz and Ferrero
As Carlos Alcaraz cut a springtime swathe through the Miami Open draw, his mind was elsewhere. The performances that propelled him into his first Masters 1000 final spoke of a player fully focused on building on an impressive semi-final run in Indian Wells. But no sooner had each victory been sealed than Alcaraz’s thoughts turned to his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, who returned to Spain on the eve of the tournament following the death of his father, Eduardo.
The pair have been working together since Alcaraz was 16, and the close bond between them was underlined in the series of messages the teenager sent to his mentor after his matches, initially on social media and then in notes scrawled on TV camera lenses. “Juanki x Eduardo”, Alcaraz wrote after his quarter-final win over Miomir Kecmanovic; “For you Juanki. This win is yours,” he added after beating Hubert Hurkacz, the defending champion, to reach what was then the biggest final of his life.
What Alcaraz did not expect was that Ferrero would hotfoot it back to Miami in time for the final. Touching footage emerged of their joyful reunion in a hotel lobby, yet that was nothing compared to the emotionally charged embrace they shared after Alcaraz completed a straight-sets victory over Casper Ruud in the final. The moment, which you can watch above, requires no words.
Best newcomer: Holger Rune
With an extraordinary burst of form that brought 19 wins from his final 21 matches of the year – and titles in Stockholm and Paris to sit alongside his spring triumph on the clay courts of Munich – Rune narrowly pips Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti to the post. While his progress this year has been somewhat overshadowed by the achievements of Alcaraz, the Dane is rapidly making up ground on his childhood rival. An impressive French Open victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas secured a first grand slam quarter-final, and Rune bested the Greek again in the Stockholm final – one of nine wins he claimed over top-10 players this season – to finish the season ranked 11th.
The teenager’s volatile temperament may not be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly when counterpointed by the humility and sportsmanship of Alcaraz, but there was a time, before the big-three era, when such contrasts of character were the lifeblood of the men’s game. Rune’s pugnacity, epitomised by his bust-up with Casper Ruud at Roland Garros, is reminiscent of Jimmy Connors – and marks him out as the perfect foil to the Spaniard.
Musetti, too, is beginning to flourish. A title winner in Naples and Hamburg (where he scored a notable victory over Alcaraz), the 20-year-old now needs to parlay that form into the majors, where his deepest run remains a last-16 appearance at Roland Garros in 2021, when he memorably led Djokovic by two sets to love. With Alcaraz leading the pack and Auger-Aliassime, 22, and Sinner, 21, also continuing to make waves, the future of the men’s game would appear to be in safe hands.
Best match: Nadal v Medvedev, Australian Open final
While it feels almost churlish to look beyond the epic sequence of victories that earned Alcaraz the US Open title, there is also a danger of recency bias. Admittedly, for sheer quality, it is doubtful any men’s match played in 2022 eclipsed the Spaniard’s quarter-final comeback from match point down against Jannik Sinner, a gladiatorial duel that spanned five hours and 15 minutes, featured 119 winners, and propelled Alcaraz into the last four of a major for the first time. But context matters, too, and while we may yet come to see Alcaraz’s maiden slam as an anchor in time, demarcating the start of a new era, the stakes in the Australian Open final were greater still – however distant last January may feel at this point.
History was not only made, but quite possibly reshaped. On the one hand, in claiming his 21st major, Nadal finally broke clear of Djokovic and Roger Federer in the all-time grand slam reckoning. No less significantly, he also arrested the gathering momentum of Daniil Medvedev, who was aiming for a second successive slam title but instead came away with a defeat so damaging that it seemed to cast a pall over his entire season. Lest we forget, the Russian overtook Djokovic at the top of the rankings a few weeks later. Would a Medvedev infused with the confidence of a second successive slam, and riding high at No 1, have become an unstoppable force? We shall never know.
What we do know is that, at the age of 35, Nadal reaffirmed his ability to win hard-court majors. He completed a double career grand slam, only the second player to do so in the open era. He fought back from two sets down for the first time since 2007, and the fourth (and most significant) time in his career. And he did so against a player 10 years his junior, who hit seven more winners and 20 more aces, made 16 fewer unforced errors, and won seven more points overall.
Whatever the match lacked in quality relative to Alcaraz-Sinner – and it is true that Nadal was thoroughly outplayed for the first two sets, and trailed 2-3, 0-40 in the third – it more than made up for in drama and variety, the Spaniard leaving no tactical stone unturned as he claimed one of the finest victories of his career.
Biggest disappointment: Stefanos Tsitsipas
It’s hard to know what to make of Stefanos Tsitsipas’s year. On the one hand, the Greek reached an Australian Open semi-final, won titles in Monte Carlo and Mallorca, and went into the final week of the season with a shot at the year-end No 1 ranking. On the other, he often underwhelmed on the big occasions, losing to Rune in the last 16 at Roland Garros, where he was a finalist in 2021, and suffering a shock first-round defeat to the Colombian qualifier Daniel Elahi Galan at the US Open.
More worryingly, Tsitsipas exhibited a petulance that sits uncomfortably with his status as an elite player. He started the year by injuring his father, Apostolos, after furiously smashing his racket into an advertising hoarding during a narrow loss to Nick Kyrgios at the ATP Cup. He ended it by angrily swatting a ball in the direction of his parents at the ATP Finals, where he afterwards made disparaging comments about Andrey Rublev, remarking that the Russian “prevailed with the few tools that he has”. At Wimbledon, where he was once again beaten by Kyrgios, he fired a ball into the crowd and later branded his opponent a bully with “a very evil side to him”.
In Tsitsipas’s defence, anyone can be driven to distraction by Kyrgios. And he has since apologised for his comments about Rublev, attributing them to his (understandable) disappointment at the defeat. Yet such lapses of composure have enhanced neither his performances nor his wider reputation.
Factor in some frankly bizarre musings on social media – of which his (apparently plagiarised) suggestion that modern feminism has become “a cult of outrage that seeks to disparage men”, which triggered a huge online backlash and an (also apparently plagiarised) volte face, is merely the latest example – and it is hard not to feel that a richly talented and exciting player is not always doing himself justice.
Best occasion: Roger Federer’s Laver Cup farewell
When you follow the sport all year round, it’s not often a tennis match leaves you weeping into your keyboard. Then again, Roger Federer’s professional swansong alongside Rafael Nadal was never going to be an ordinary tennis match.
On a night when the result was immaterial, Federer’s farewell was all about the aftermath. “We’ll get through this somehow, will we?” Federer asked plaintively as he began his courtside interview with Jim Courier afterwards. And we did – but, boy, was it touch and go.
The minutes that followed will remain indelibly etched in the memory of anyone who ever admired the silken smoothness of Federer’s shot-making, or bathed in the brilliance of all those history-defining showdowns with Nadal; anyone who felt the joy of his outrageously improbable triumph at the Australian Open after a five year grand slam drought, or the bitter pain of those missed match points against Djokovic in the 2019 Wimbledon final, or countless other moments like them; anyone who admired his unwavering devotion to his family, his generosity of spirit, the sense of vulnerability that so humanised him, bridging the gap between global icon and us mere mortals.
Surrounded by legends, peers, rivals – and, most poignantly, cloaked in the comfort blanket of his watching family – Federer radiated gratitude and humility. The import of the occasion was intensified by the reactions of those around him. By the tears Nadal shared with his friend and rival as they watched Ellie Goulding’s impassioned vocal performance. By the lengthy embrace Federer shared with his wife Mirka when it was all over. By the hugs he received from his children as he implored them not to cry, and the obvious emotion of his parents, Robert and Lynette.
Federer first impinged on the wider public consciousness when he cried tears of joy after his first Wimbledon triumph all those years ago. He left the sport much as he entered it.