MATCH POINT: A Wimbledon final for the ages, late night chaos and tennis' answer to Max Verstappen... Mail Sport reviews the highs and lows of a frustrating season

The tennis world enters its brief period of hibernation buoyed by a rousing climax to the year which, recency bias apart, rounded up what was otherwise a largely non-vintage season.

The good news: 2024 is shaping up to be better. Here’s a look at some of the highs and lows.

Best tournament

We have to call this as a dead heat between the ATP Finals and the Davis Cup final eight. Unusually, the best fortnight of the year was not a Grand Slam but the closing two events of the men’s season, which delivered drama and quality in abundance.

The ATP Finals have moved seamlessly to Turin and seized on the advantage of a local hero in Jannik Sinner. The same player helped light up sport’s oldest World Cup, suggesting that, after 123 years, there might be a bright future for it after all.

Worst tournament

Sadly there is the sharpest of contrast here with the disastrous WTA Finals, which were taken to Cancun at 52 days’ notice and resulted in embarrassment for the women’s game.

The leadership of the WTA dithered and then picked the Mexican coast at the tail end of the hurricane season.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong did, from the weather to the court surface to power blackouts.

Along with the understandable anger from the players, some took to social media and joined in seeing the funny side to what became a tragicomedy.

Player of the year

Having been barred from two of the Slams in 2022 due to his anti-vaccine stance, Novak Djokovic made up for self-imposed lost time to become tennis’s answer to F1’s Max Verstappen.

The upside was seeing a genius at work; the downside was that at times it became a procession.

Were it not for one pivotal missed volley in the Wimbledon final’s deciding set, and the remarkable resolve of Sinner in the Davis Cup semi-final, it would have been a near-perfect season for the GOAT.

Best match

Nothing could top the men’s final at Wimbledon, which looked like being a blowout in the first set but became one for the ages as Carlos Alcaraz dethroned the established master in Djokovic before the most A-list of crowds.

All four of the women’s Grand Slam finals were excellent in their own way, the pick being the Australian Open climax between Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina. But an honourable mention for the pulsating fourth round at SW19 between Elina Svitolina and Victoria Azarenka.

Time, please

The drawn-out length of tennis matches nowadays, going against modern-day societal trends, and ridiculously late finishes continue to be a problem for everyone bar tournament officials, insulated by having chauffeur-driven transport on tap.

Only in the past month, thousands of fans were locked out of the stadium at the Paris Masters and Davis Cup due to massive day-session over-runs caused by naive scheduling.

Tennis’s scoring system (dating from medieval times) is a thing of ancient genius, but at some point it will need modifying.

Elephant in the locker room

Djokovic’s father ‘accidentally’ found himself caught up in a pro-Vladimir Putin demonstration at Melbourne Park, setting the tone for a year when the sport tried its best to look the other way as one significant tennis nation continued to pulverise another, at horrific human cost.

The refusal of Ukrainian players to shake hands at the net with Russian and Belarusians became emblematic of the bitter atmosphere which pervades between them. This seems unlikely to fade away.

Welcome trends

Even if the gap in popularity and economic heft between the men’s and women’s game grew in 2023, some solidifying of rivalries at the top of the WTA provides hope for the future.

Iga Swiatek proved herself the best, but the biggest boost was Coco Gauff’s breakthrough to win the US Open, authenticating the 19-year-old as a star who cuts through the sport’s normal boundaries in a hugely important market. That the top six includes two Americans and a Tunisian can only be a good thing.

On the men’s side Djokovic reigns supreme, but at least there is now a clear view of a coming generation in the form of Alcaraz, Sinner and, most likely, Holger Rune. The emergence of popular newcomers such as Ben Shelton and Wimbledon quarter-finalist Chris Eubanks also bodes well.

Absent friends

Too often this year you found yourself having to report on who was pulling out of somewhere, rather than who turned up.

Rafael Nadal, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios, Simona Halep, Matteo Berrettini and Emma Raducanu were among those sorely missed for too much time.

The noises around most of them for next year have varying degrees of positivity, but you fear Kyrgios will end up going down as the most grievous waste of talent and charisma.

The Brit awards

There was Grand Slam success for Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury. 

Around mid-March the Britpack was promising a lot, with performances from Cam Norrie, Andy Murray, Raducanu and Jack Draper suggesting an exciting summer beckoned.

Then it never quite happened, though Draper came on strong towards the end. Norrie and Dan Evans paid the price for overplaying, and Murray raged against the dying of the light. It remains all out there for Draper and Raducanu, if they really want it.

The player who made the most progress was Katie Boulter, who cut her ranking from 136 to 56 and won the Nottingham Open.

There are some pockets of improvement among the Brits but, as is the case in fellow Grand Slam nations France and Australia, elaborate and well-funded systems still struggle to deliver as much as they should.