The 2020 tennis season came to an end. After many months of inactivity and doubts due to the pandemic, the ATP circuit was able to relaunch in time to play the most important tournaments and finish last Sunday with the ATP Finals, that crowned Daniil Medvedev as the new Tennis Master. But apart from this success, it is time to analyze the season of the rest of the stars in the world ranking.
Outstanding
-Novak Djokovic: who knows what would have happened if the Serbian was not disqualified from the US Open for his unfortunate and unintentional hitting a linesman. We would probably be talking about a tuition course. Finally, Djokovic closed the year with the Australian Open, his 17th Grand Slam, and the number 1 for the sixth season as the most important achievements. Besides being the tennis player with the most matches won in 2020. Tremendous.
-Dominic Thiem: The Austrian has established himself for another year as the 'scourge of the Big Three', which is no small feat, being the only player who maintains a positive balance in the confrontations against Nole, Federer and Nadal in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. at the US Open the first Grand Slam of his career, and both his tennis and his physique have reached a devastating level.
-Rafael Nadal: the Spaniard has not lived an extensive season in terms of number of games. He resigned from the American tour due to the health situation, so he did not even participate in the US Open or in the preparation tournaments. But his year is still excellent after winning Roland Garros for the 13th time (thanks to a historical review of Djokovic), which allowed him to tie with Federer as the player with the best in tennis history. He finished the year as number 2 and with a creditable semifinals in the ATP Finals.
-Daniil Medvedev: the Moscow man started the season with doubts, without showing the great version he left in 2019. The results were made to wait until the final stretch of the year, as happened last year, that strip of tournaments in which Daniil seems to have no rival. He ended up winning the last two tournaments in a row: the Paris-Bercy Masters 1,000 and the ATP Finals, crowning himself Master for the first time in his second appearance at the O2. At 24 he is called to even greater heights.
Daniil Medvedev, with the Master's trophy.
GLYN KIRK (AFP)
Notable
-Andrey Rublev: the Russian season has been fabulous, without a doubt, that of his confirmation in the tennis elite. The pupil of the Spanish Fernando Vicente has taken a huge step forward to sneak in on his own merits among the best tennis players on the circuit. He has been the player who has won the most titles this year (5) and has registered the second best balance after Djokovic: 41-10. He made his debut in an ATP Finals and although he said goodbye at the Round Robin, the solidity of his tennis will allow him to dream of Masters 1,000 and even Grand Slams in the coming years.
All right
-Alexander Zverev: The German has taken one more step in his tennis this year on a mental level, mainly since the arrival of David Ferrer to his coaching staff. He still lacks one more point of effectiveness in the decisive moments, those that decide titles. He reached his first Grand Slam final at the US Open and had Thiem on the ropes, but ended up losing in a historic final. He also reached the final at the Paris-Bercy Masters, but Medvedev managed to overcome him. He has won two minor titles in Cologne and closes the year with a good record of 28 wins and 11 losses.
-Diego Schwartzman: Despite not winning any title, Peque has had one of his best seasons as a professional, especially in terms of consistency. Special mention for his clay court tour, where he shone with his own light reaching the final at the 1,000 Masters in Rome (he lost to Djokovic) after eliminating Nadal in the quarterfinals, and the Roland Garros semifinals, where the Manacor took his revenge on the Argentine in the semifinals. All this allowed the Argentine to play the ATP Finals for the first time in his career and finish the course as 9th in the ranking.
Suspensions
-Matteo Berrettini: the Italian season has been to forget. After last season was shown as the great revelation of the circuit, finishing the year among the top eight in the ranking and contesting the ATP Finals, Berrettini has signed very discreet results. 9-6 balance and no title. He obviously fell from the top eight and is now ranked 10th.
-Stefanos Tsitsipas: Much more was expected this year from the 2019 ATP Finals champion, but his performance has been disappointing. The Greek has not lived up to expectations in any major tournament and has been far from fighting for the big titles. He has only won one, category 250, in Marseille, but far from the privilege rounds at Grand Slams and Masters 1,000. His best performance was signed at Roland Garros, where Djokovic sent him home in the semifinals.
Unrated
-Roger Federer: Unfortunately, due to the physical problems that he has dragged on for much of the year, the Swiss season becomes impossible to qualify. After signing a creditable semifinal against Djokovic at the Australian Open, Federer said goodbye to the rest of the year after undergoing two arthroscopies in his knee. Finally he only played six games in the whole year, those of Melbourne, so there is no option of knowing what he would have achieved had it not been for injuries. It fell to fifth place in the ranking, something that had not happened since March 2019.