It seems that tennis never stops, or at least tennis news never stops. In the week or so since the end of the 2024 ATP and WTA Tours, it has been announced that Iga Swiatek has joined Jannik Sinner in failing a drug test and, even more extraordinarily, Andy Murray has joined Novak Djokovic as his coach. Those two stories have ramped up interest in the 2025 tennis season, the start of which is now only weeks away. However, before projecting forward, it is worth looking back at some of the best stories in tennis in the last calendar year. Here are 10 Terrific Things In Tennis In 2024.
10 Terrific Things In Tennis In 2024
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Jannik Sinner’s Year-Long Consistency (and Class)
The fact that Sinner failed two drug tests will be addressed in the second part of this series: 10 Terrible Things In Tennis In 2024. But for now at least, he continues to bestride the tennis world like a colossus, and unless and until his achievements in the last 12 months are somehow struck from the record, they are deserving of celebration.
Sinner’s remarkable 2024 really began at the end of 2023, with the Miracle in Malaga that drove Italy to Davis Cup triumph for the first time in nearly half a century. This year, he built on that team triumph by becoming the dominant individual on the ATP Tour. He won the two hardcourt Majors (the Australian and US Opens), rose to world #1 and, finally, with a perfect sense of symmetry, ended 2024 by leading Italy to another Davis Cup victory.
In addition to incredible consistency (he lost only six matches all year), Sinner often showed incredible class. That was especially evident in his measured reaction to the ongoing drug test controversy. But lest anyone suggest that that was only part of his ongoing defence against the drug charges, it is worth remembering his reaction to clinching a second successive Davis Cup victory for Italy. While the other Italian players and staff literally leapt around for joy, Sinner shook the hand of every single member of the Netherlands Davis Cup team and their support staff, and offered commiserations. As Ron Burgundy might have put it, somehow, amid all the noise and controversy, Sinner stays classy.
- Muchová In New York
Nevertheless, Sinner did not play the best tennis seen at a Major this year. That accolade belongs to Karolína Muchová after her breathtaking run to the semifinal of the US Open in September. Ultimately, Muchová could not win the title, as she succumbed to home favourite Jessica Pegula in that semifinal. But for the first set of it she was sublime, as she had been throughout the tournament, winning it 6-1 and making Pegula, a staple in the top 10 for the last year, look like an absolute beginner.
Perhaps in the end Muchová just ran out of energy, because the US Open was her first Major of the year after a wrist injury, which is probably the worst injury of all for a tennis player, had kept her off court for nearly six months. And yet that only makes Muchová’s achievements at the 2024 US Open all the more impressive.
At her best, as she was for most of that New York fortnight, Muchová is not only the most aesthetically pleasing female tennis player in the world but the most aesthetically pleasing tennis player of either gender. Or to put it more succinctly, at her best she is the closest to being a female Federer that tennis has seen. The key difference, of course, is that Federer remained largely injury-free for nearly 20 years, whereas Muchová can barely remain injury-free for 20 days. Nevertheless, the memory of her majestic performances at this year’s US Open will sustain the hope that this supreme tennis artist can one day go all the way and win the Major singles title that her talent deserves.
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Carlos Alcaraz’s French Open and Wimbledon Double
The best tennis played by a man at this year’s Majors came in the Wimbledon Final, when Carlos Alcaraz inflicted one of the worst Major final defeats, if not the worst, in Novak Djokovic’s career. Djokovic was thrashed by the Spanish prodigy, 6–2, 6–2, 7–6 (7–4). Among tennis historians, it evoked memories of similarly sublime performances in the past, such as John McEnroe’s equally one-sided evisceration of Chris Lewis in the 1983 Wimbledon final. The difference, of course, is that Lewis was an unseeded player whereas Djokovic is, statistically at least, The GOAT.
Alcaraz’s Wimbledon victory came just a few weeks after he had won the French Open for the first time, defeating Alexander Zverev in a far more competitive five-set final and twice coming from a set down to do so. Consequently, when he went on to win Wimbledon soon afterwards, he became the first man since his illustrious compatriot Rafael Nadal in 2008 to win the two unique slams (the only Majors played on their respective surfaces) in the same year.
Alcaraz’s double triumph in 2024 also meant that he had completed the Tennis Triple Crown by winning Majors on the three different surfaces that the sport is played on. Next month in Australia, he has the opportunity to complete the Career Grand Slam by winning all four Majors and if he does so he will become the youngest man ever to manage that feat. He may not be able yet to match Jannik Sinner’s incredible consistency, but his ceiling, or highest level, is probably even higher than that of the Italian.
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Jasmine Paolini – The New Blue Jasmine
Blue Jasmine (2013) may be the last great film that Woody Allen ever makes. Cate Blanchett’s depiction of the descent into madness of a millionaire’s wife after her husband is arrested for fraud was extraordinary and deservedly Oscar-nominated. However, after 2024 and in particular her pivotal role in leading Italy to BJK Cup success, there is a new Blue (or more accurately Azzurri) Jasmine in town.
That, of course, is Jasmine Paolini, who is the opposite in almost every sense to the depressed or “blue” Jasmine of Allen’s film. Whereas the original Blue Jasmine had life easy before it came crashing down around her, the new Blue Jasmine is not only a workaholic who has somehow completely transformed her career but a “happyholic”, too, as she radiates joy on and off court.
Just like her male counterpart in Italian tennis, Jannik Sinner, Paolini’s amazing 2024 really began at the end of 2023, when she helped Italy to reach the BJK Cup final, which they lost to Canada. And just like Sinner, Paolini was obviously inspired by team success to up her own individual game. Consequently, she went from being a virtual also-ran to a Major contender, reaching the final of both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. And if ultimately she could not claim a singles Slam title, she almost made up for it with two outstanding team tennis triumphs: first, in the Olympic women’s doubles at Roland Garros alongside her mentor and partner Sara Errani; and then in the BJK Cup final, where she played both singles and doubles, and was brilliant as she matched Sinner and made Italy World Champions.
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Forget Serena: Aryna Is The New Hard-court Queen
Serena Williams is probably the greatest female tennis player of all time. In the end, she could not match Margaret Court’s total of 24 Singles titles (which Novak Djokovic has now equalled), but there is still little doubt that she was the greater player, especially given the fact that 11 of Court’s singles titles came at her home Slam, the Australian Open, when many of the world’s best players simply did not travel down under.
Serena was particularly devastating on the fastest surfaces that tennis is played on – hardcourt and grass – with only three of her 23 Major Singles titles coming on the clay of Roland Garros. And that is just one of the ways in which Aryna Sabalenka, her successor as the fastest server and biggest hitter in women’s tennis, bears comparison with her.
Put simply, in 2024 Aryna replaced Serena as the hardcourt Queena by winning Majors in Melbourne and New York. Just as Iga Swiatek is almost unbeatable on clay, Sabalenka is now virtually impregnable on hardcourt and it is that dominance of the surface that tennis is predominantly played on (about 60% of ATP and WTA tour events are hardcourt events) that propelled her to world #1 by the end of 2024.
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Swiatek’s Paris Triumph (and Chrissie Evert’s Praise For It)
Iga Swiatek lost her cloak of tennis invincibility this year, as she not only lost her world #1 ranking but, even more incredibly, failed a drug test. However, she still remained the world’s best female player on clay and in particular on the greatest clay courts in the world at Roland Garros.
In 2024, Swiatek completed a hat-trick of French Open Singles titles and won her fourth French Open in five years. Indeed, so dominant has she been at Roland Garros that it is no longer completely unthinkable that one day she could match or even exceed Rafael Nadal’s remarkable record of 14 French Open titles, which was assumed to be unreachable.
Even if Swiatek never matches her idol Rafa for the number of titles she wins at Roland Garros, for one other tennis great she is already the finest female clay-courter there has been. That tennis great is Chris Evert, who won seven French Open titles in just over a decade between 1974 and 1986. However, after seeing Swiatek easily beat Jasmine Paolini in the 2024 French Open Women’s singles final, Chrissie declared that although she may have the greater number of titles on clay for now, Swiatek has by far the greater game for the surface.
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Zheng Qinwen’s Olympic Triumph – at Roland Garros
Fortunately for the rest of women’s tennis, Swiatek is no longer on an unbeaten run at Roland Garros. That’s because she lost in the 2024 Olympic women’s singles semifinal, which at this year’s Paris Olympics was played at the home of the French Open, to China’s Zheng Qinwen. That defeat ended Swiatek’s 25-match winning run at Roland Garros and offered hope that, just like Andy Murray at the London Olympics in 2012, victory at an “Olympic Slam” (an Olympic tennis event staged at one of the four Major venues) can lead Zheng to a singles title at the same venue soon afterwards.
Such an achievement is certainly possible, given Zheng’s record in 2024 and not just at the Olympics. She also reached her first Major Singles final, in Melbourne at the start of the year, and although she lost relatively easily to Aryna Sabalenka, reaching the final confirmed that she is China’s brightest tennis talent since her idol, Li Na, who won two Major singles titles just over a decade ago.
Emboldened by her Olympic triumph, Zheng rose up the rankings, eventually reaching her current/year-end position of #5. After her dramatic improvement in 2024, which has only been eclipsed by the even more spectacular ascent of Jasmine Paolini, there is every chance that in 2025 she can finally match Li Na by winning a Major singles title of her own.
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Novak Djokovic’s Olympic Gold
By his own standards, which are the loftiest ever set by any male tennis player, Novak Djokovic had a poor 2024, failing to win a Major Singles title (after winning three in 2023) and suffering a succession of shock defeats to unheralded players who he would once have dismissed with a swish of his racket. However, there was one notable exception, namely his Olympic singles triumph. And given how he celebrated that success, it seemed to make up for all the disappointing defeats before and after.
The presence of tennis in the Olympics remains contentious, to say the least, with several notable players, such as Ben Shelton, deciding not to compete at Roland Garros in the summer. However, if North American and Western European players occasionally seem to look down upon Olympic tennis, preferring instead to prepare for the US Open, the same is not true of most Eastern European players, including Djokovic.
That is because of the readmission of tennis to the Olympics in 1988, after a gap of more than 60 years. In the run-up to that readmission, which came before the end of the Cold War, Communist eastern European and Soviet countries invested heavily in tennis, now that it was an Olympic sport and therefore afforded them the opportunity to get one over their Western counterparts. Consequently, like other eastern European players before him, such as Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchová, Djokovic has always regarded an Olympic singles title as the greatest prize in tennis. And that was why, when he defeated Carlos Alcaraz in the final this year, he celebrated so hard and for so long.
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Italy’s Davis and BJK Cup Double
If Djokovic arguably “completed” singles tennis in 2024 by winning Olympic Gold, then Italy perhaps completed team tennis this year by winning the Davis and BJK Cup double. Just a few days after Jasmine Paolini spearheaded the Italian women’s triumph, Jannik Sinner helped Italy’s men to retain the Davis Cup.
It was further proof, if it were needed, that Italy is currently the greatest tennis nation in the world. Beyond boasting the men’s world #1 in Sinner and the women’s world #4 in Paolini, there are many other Italian men and women competing at or near the top of the game, ranging from veterans such as Matteo Berrettini (who was almost as instrumental as Sinner in this year’s Davis Cup win) to relative newcomers such as Lucia Bronzetti (who was also superb in the BJK Cup).
Italy has always been a country with a tremendous passion for tennis, as demonstrated by the near-frenzy of the crowds at the Italian Open each year. Now, however, it also has tremendous players and tennis infrastructure. To give just one example of that infrastructure, the large number of Italian Futures and Challenger events effectively allows young Italian players to take their first steps in the professional game without having to go abroad, minimising their travel costs and maximising their chances of development.
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Giovanni Mpetchi Perricard: Big Name And Big Man, But An Even Bigger Talent
Finally, Giovanni Mpetchi Perricard, or GMP as he will surely become known, might just have been the most eye-catching player to break through this year on either the men’s or women’s side of the game. The young Frenchman may not have matched the Major-winning achievements of Jannik Sinner, or even reached Major finals like Jasmine Paolini, but he has one thing that neither of those Italian titans have, namely a single-handed backhand.
The single-handed backhand is almost as endangered in tennis as every large mammal is in the wild, not least because two of The Big Three of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer had mighty two-handed backhands that made even Federer’s majestic single-hander look under-powered, until he remodelled it completely before the last and arguably greatest stage of his career.
GMP’s single-hander is not yet as beautiful or as effective as that of Federer. However, it is the fact that GMP is six feet eight tall that makes his possession of a single-hander so noteworthy. Few if any other players of his height have a single-hander, but it allows him to combine his obvious physical power with moments of great grace.
In the second part of his annual three-part series on the tennis season that has just ended, LWOT’s Martin Keady looks back at the Dark Side – 10 Terrible Things in Tennis in 2024.
Main photo credit: Andrew P. Scott-USA TODAY Sports
