So we’re here today in Melbourne at the Australian Open, and we’re about to have lunch. But it is not a happy lunch, for we are having crow. At least, I’m having crow. This as a direct result of my cherished belief that Roger Federer and Andy Roddick were destined to find each other in the final. Apparently Marcos Baghdatis did not hear this proclamation from the mount, so the 54th seed from Cyprus took Number two Andy Roddick out of the tournament in four sets. He outplayed Roddick for the bulk of the match, going away only in the second when Roddick kept his serve on track enough to win the set, 6-1.

A key moment came in the fourth set, with Baghdatis serving. He unloaded on a monster forehand, then an ace, to consolidate his earlier break and go up 4-2. The power exchange between the two men came at this point. Andy never recovered, and time was running out. He was the bigger man physically with the more powerful weapons, but his timidity held them in check. It was Baghdatis who took it to Andy; Andy could not return the favor. The long first point of the last game seemed to encapsulate the match’s demeanor: you had one guy manning the baseline, the other guy positioned in back of it. Andy lost four straight points on his serve, with Marcos Baghdatis clinching the win with a crushing forehand winner cross-court.

The question would arise, what happened to the so-called Roddick new leaf, which called for more fitness and, more importantly, more aggression? It was strangely absent today. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question of Roddick. Do we really believe it’s mainly a matter of aggression on court, or is it really a matter of how well he perceives the game at that particular moment in a match, and himself within that moment. I’m posing a strategery question here, as Dubya would say.

Does Andy know where he is moment by moment? I am wondering now if he fully does. Because he makes these god-awful shots at times, I find myself yelling, “Why did you try that shot for heaven’s sake?” or “What are you doing hitting it there?” or “Why are you standing way back there?” That last one everybody in the house was asking, it became the refrain of the day. “What is he doing standing so far back?”

Here’s this guy who’s just built for power every which way, from that killer serve to the big forceful forehand. But he hugs the baseline. He’s like Ferdinand the Bull, the most ferocious bull on the block until he makes it into the ring, and there he sits down and smells the flowers.

Patrick McEnroe has offered some excellent insights into why Andy may be reticent to come forward at least to the baseline. When Andy was a youngster he was small, his style of play adjusted for this fact, he became a baseliner, a guy capable of staying back and getting into a rhythm from there. Then, at 16 or so, he got a new surge in growth. Suddenly he was tall and powerful, he developed a forceful serve. But his new weapon was at war with his basic tennis training, to hug the baseline, to stay back. You’d think anything beyond the baseline up to the net was a vast stretch of the Gobi Desert, to be avoided at all costs. It’s only when Andy is getting really burned that he starts serving and volleying more, and trying generally to move his game forward. But by then it’s often too late.

We were seeing some of that war in the match today.

I question whether he is fully attuned to the moment. Because if he were, these choices in shots would disappear and better ones would replace them. Andy would not let himself get pushed around the way Baghdatis treated him today. It takes a bit of time to develop a feel for bigger strategy on court, but the guy has got to make the effort to think his way better through points. Regard it as an extension of the hard work Roddick has put in physically leading up to the Open.

Marcos Baghdatis has a compact, solid game, like the guy himself. At age 20, Baghdatis is barely catching the tail end of that train of guys who have been highly touted as the new wave of men’s tennis. Guys like Thomas Berdych, Richard Gasquet, Andy Murray, Gael Monfils. But those guys are all gone from the draw now, and here is Baghdatis, ready for his hot date with Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic, who easily took down Sweden’s Thomas Johansson in straight sets. It probably won’t be a great quarterfinal, as Ljubicic is much more experienced and has had a great year of play. But kudos for Baghdatis for injecting some new energy and pizazz into the game. He deserves to be here.

It must be painful for Andy to lose a match like this, and to lose it because he got outhit, on both forehand and backhand sides. He was even out-aced by Baghdatis. It’s not always about power though, or even being aggressive. I would suggest Roddick spend less time at the poker tables and more time watching someone maybe like Martina Hingis. Does this woman lose her way on court? Does she ever get out of position? Do we ever say of her, “Why did she hit THAT shot?”

Because of her lack of power, Martina has had to develop her game via the gray stuff between her ears. Because of his great power resources, Andy has been able to put that style of playing on hold.

Now he may really have to become a “student of the game.”

Well, our waiter has arrived with the plat du jour and a lovely bottle of Chateau de Garlic, from Gilroy California. The taste is so powerful that they suggest chilling it first. I’m told it helps.

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The heat has finally arrived in Melbourne as the first week of the Australian Open draws to a close. Sticky courts, ice packs and closed roofs are now making their appearances. You’d think the boys and girls would really want to get their matches over in a hurry when it’s 1oo+ on court, but no. Five set matches are still taking place. Fabrice Santoro enjoyed a five set win over Number 8 seed Gaston Gaudio. Yesterday Dominik Hrbaty won his third straight five-setter over Igor Andreev. Sebastian Grosjean took out Guillermo Coria in four sets, continuing what has been a rather easy run for the Frenchman. Nicholas Kiefer had a good match against Juan Carlos Ferrero, taking the Spaniard down in four sets.

My Dark Horse pick, Tommy Haas, rolled again easily in three sets over his American opponent, Paul Goldstein. Then he took out the last Aussie in the draw, qualifier Peter Luczak, in four sets. “I guess we should start talking about Tommy Haas,” says Mary Carillo in the booth. I guess you should, although we don’t want to jinx the man. But a lot of people are now looking forward to that fourth round match-up between Haas and Roger Federer. Their styles are rather similar, both with all-court games and gorgeous one-handed backhands. Tommy is almost the roadshow version of Roger we could argue.

Roger had his way easily today over good buddy Max Mirnyi in straight sets. Even faced with a huge serving opponent in his match, Roger seemed unfazed. Mirnyi was serving over 70% through the first set on his first serves, and he still lost. As the heat blazes and tempers flare, Roger moves about as if from another realm. Serene, poised, impeccable. He barely breaks a sweat. It hardly seems fair. If Roger has a weakness, suggested Cliff Drysdale in the TV booth, then it might be that he needs more experience putting the clamps on early in a match when he’s ahead. Not letting it morph into a longer match. Gee, quipped Patrick McEnroe, doesn’t he do that already? Like in the warm-ups?

Andy Roddick continues rather effortlessly through his matches. This is good, as Andy has taken up poker it seems and now he has more time at the tables. Roddick seems as relaxed off-court as he is aggressive on. The run continues. Let’s just say it, why not? Roger and Andy. Andy and Roger. In the Final. Good, that’s out of the way.

The top women are mostly taking care of business. Lindsay Davenport needed three sets against Kirilenko and they weren’t exactly objets d’art, but she won. Ditto Maria Sharapova and Justine Henin-Hardenne. Justine is surprisingly thinner this season. Apparently Henin-Hardenne decided she didn’t need all that muscle she added during last year. For someone with her style of play, quickness and speed may be better bets than muscling her way through power shots.

Mary Pierce’s loss to Iveta Benasova leaves her the highest woman’s seed to go. At the women’s year end tournament in Los Angeles in November, I had written how Mary’s game is too erratic to predict the same success this year she had in 2005. Her loss to Benesova bore that out. Pierce could not string together much of anything to make a match out of it. Or she would set up points but then blow them.

Yesterday the women’s field also lost Serena Williams. Daniela Hantuchova had never managed to win a set off her. She not only won the set, she won the match. Physically it was an odd-looking event. Hantuchova still looks too thin in my book; Serena on the other hand looked like she snagged every cupcake from Miami to Melbourne. Chunky, BBW, or just plain fat, Serena’s got to get it together. She and her sister Venus both appear “filled out.” That sounds nicer.

Brad Gilbert spoke throughout the match about Serena’s movement, or lack thereof. She was not able to move well and get set up for her next shot, and this was simply due to her lack of conditioning. Personally, it was painful to see the shape the woman was in yesterday. She still insists on wearing outfits that say nothing flattering at all about her figure. From either a fashion or a fitness point of view.

Can’t we all remember the times when the sisters dominated the game thoroughly just on their serves alone? Even their second serves caused much consternation, because they were in the 90s. Now they can barely get the speed over 70 mph.

This was the earliest exit ever for Venus and Serena from a Grand Slam.
After the match Mary Carillo commented how the sisters “won’t get away” with the kind of tennis they have been putting up of late, that this early defeat would be a “cold bucket of water” for the sisters. The best thing that could happen to them. We hope flames of rage are seen emitting from their heads as they work their way back into the rest of the year. Hopefully, they still HAVE flames of rage to summon up.

Maria Sharapova will be the first to congratulate Hantuchova on her victory over Serena. They were scheduled to meet next. We all heard how Sharapova wanted another crack at Serena, but trust us, she’ll be very happy with Hantuchova. Another skinny-assed white girl she can push around a lot more easily than Serena.

The big upset on the men’s side was Number 3 seed Lleyton Hewitt going out in straight sets to Juan Ignacio Chela. This was a reprise of last year when Chela was caught apparently spitting in Hewitt’s direction at one point. He went on to lose to Hewitt in a highly contentious match. Much has been written in the Australian press about Hewitt’s somewhat spotty preparation this year. He has been preoccupied by a new wife and a new baby and a circle of publicity that have conspired to take him away from the court time he needed to play well at a slam. The flu kicked in too, taking the normally feisty Australian away from his energy base. Deprived of his physical game and combativeness, Hewitt went out, dare we say, as meekly as a newborn.

Interesting Match-Ups:

Other than the Federer-Haas showdown, several good matches are in the works. Fourth seed David Nalbandian faces #16 Tommy Robredo. Seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic meets #10 Thomas Johansson. These are good tour workmen, going about their tennis in solid if unspectacular fashion. Andy Roddick should trounce Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus later today, but this could be a raucous match. What ethnic group is not in attendance here? We’ve got the usual motleys of Swedes, Argis and Hewitt fans, now we’ve added a crowd from Cyprus. Expect lots of chatter, from fans and players.

Among the women, #1 seed Lindsay Davenport faces Svetlana Kuznetsova, #14th. Kuznetsova has made a good start at getting her game on track again this year. But Lindsay should be ready now to step it up and take her out in two sets.

A really intriguing match-up features the rising teenager, Nicole Vaidisova of Czechoslovakia, ranked 16th, against #3 seed Amelie Mauresmo. Amelie has moved very quietly through the draw, taking care of business and getting some luck thrown her way too. Yesterday her opponent, Michaella Krajicek, withdrew because of the heat after losing the first set. Amelie must feel like she died and went to heaven, and they call it Australia. No obnoxious French press hounding her with their expectations. She’s probably feeling anonymous and loving it.

And Martina Hingis. Martina Martina. Well, we should start expecting more from her, shouldn’t we? Her countryman Roger Federer spoke rather highly of her game the other day and predicted she could be back in the top twenty in no time. This was not just a sampling of how the Swiss stick together; more like birds of a feather flocking together. It has become apparent to all of us that the style and panache of Martina Hingis is something this guy Roger Federer has a sprinkling of too. If Roger can scatter some pixie dust her way, why not? To paraphrase Orson Welles in the film “The Third Man,” the Borgias in Italy got wars and bloodshed but they also got the whole Renaissance. The Swiss had years of peace and prosperity and produced nothing, save the cuckoo clock.

Well, not just the clock. Now they can claim a man and woman who play the game of tennis with more artistry than just about any pair has ever done.

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There is something surreal about coming to Melbourne for the Australian Open. Surreal is now one of the most overused words according to a recent poll, but how else to describe the pleasant shock of this transition time into the first Grand Slam of the year? Here we are in the San Francisco bay area, freezing our tushes off and having to wear tights now on our cycling rides, then we turn on the TV and seeing gorgeously tanned people, packed into the stands under warm skies.

“There seem to be a lot of blondes here,” quips Patrick McEnroe from the cool shade of the announcer’s booth. And not all of them are seated in Hewitt’s box either.

The tournament is only a few days along, but already it feels like a million years gone. Stuff has happened, lots of it. Among the men, it feels almost like there was a conspiracy of sorts, and they got together and decreed that hardly anyone would get through a round without playing five set matches. They were everywhere, which suggests that perhaps a lot of the lesser ranked guys went out and practiced hard during their off-time. Here they are now, ready to hang in longer with the higher ranked players, thus giving rise to really long matches.

Guillermo Coria, Nikolai Davydenko, Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian had their hands full. Although their opponents played well, these were matches that should not have taken five sets to win. In Nalbandian’s case, he was up two sets before his opponent decided to play after all. On the one hand, we could regard this extra effort as a good conditioner. Or we could take it as a sign that lots of guys are going to be completely worn out by this trench warfare going into the second week of the tournament.

Numbers One and Two would certainly not complain if that happened to the field. Roger Federer and Andy Roddick have gone through their early matches in efficient, ho-hum fashion. Barring major upheavals here, it seems inevitable they will meet in the final.

The women’s field saw the usual wild array of weird upsets and major crush jobs. Lindsay Davenport, Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova and Mary Pierce made short work of their opponents. Amelie Mauresmo needed a third set before beating her opponent. Patty Schnyder got by Greece’s Eleni Daniilidou in straight sets, perhaps the most interesting first round women’s match on paper. Elena Dementieva looked like she hadn’t quite gotten off the plane even, going down in straight sets to a German, Julia Schruff, who has surprised her before.

Just as my eyes were getting used to the glare from Venus’ canary yellow outfit, suddenly she was gone. Ousted by Tszvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria. Notice the care taken in spelling this one correctly. Perhaps in future Venus will check passports, this is the second Bulgarian player she has lost to in the year. The first one, at last year’s French Open, was Sesil Karatancheva, now known as the player with the two-year ban for using an illegal substance.

Pironkova will probably be asked to donate for testing nearly every bodily fluid she has after her match with Venus. Only 18, she is a tall 5’11”, the daughter of a canoest dad and a swimmer mother. Her style of play has a cramped look, she loves hitting the ball almost in on her hands. Her service motion is straight up, very little movement of her body into the court. She kept her cool remarkably well. Venus may have hoped she would get nervous and go off her game, but that never really happened.

“Obviously she benefited from my largesse,” quipped Venus later. A nice way of putting it when you have 65 errors in the match to your opponent’s 22.

The other interesting women’s match in the early rounds was the return of Martina Hingis against Vera Zvonareva. Perhaps because we were not expecting huge things from her, everyone seems rather pleased when Hingis played so well. Her body looks stronger, the shoulder girdle seems wider and her deltoids more prominent. She has more power on her serve and forehand, and she looks fit enough to run forever on court. “Isn’t it nice to see someone out there actually thinking,” said Mary Carillo. Isn’t it though? There is always more room for actual thought processes in the game of tennis.

The Rest:

Into the Twilight: Carlos Moya and Tin Henman both lost their opening matches. It seems only a few weeks ago that Carlos was here in the final himself against Pete Sampras. Henman has had a terrible time trying to get some consistency in his game this past year. Interesting to note that as they near the ends of their fine careers, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray are ready to follow them onstage. Nadal was a no-show due to injury, Murray lost rather handily in three sets to Juan Ignacio Chela. Henman has complained about how the press has been touting Murray as his successor, while Murray complained after his loss about being Henman’s successor with all the pressure that comes with that. Is no one ever happy in tennis? No one from Britain, anyway.

The Americans: Robby Ginepri won his first two sets in the second round against qualifier Denis Gremelmayr, was up 3-0 in the third, then dropped the next three sets. Ouch. This reporter was expecting good things from Ginepri this year. We still do. But it’s a good thing they didn’t show Robby’s match. James Blake looks good, he has made it into the third round.

A Dark and Ugly Moment: Fernando Gonzalez, seeded 9th, got into a shouting, snarling match with American qualifier Alex Bogomolov Jr. And didn’t we all discover how great we are at reading lips? Apparently Gonzalez complained to the chair about the American’s behavior on court (too demonstrative). One thing lead to another, and the referee had to step in between them. Darn. Haven’t you ever wondered how tennis players would fare if they had to throw a punch or two? When the dust settled, Gonzalez saw the match slip away from him in five sets. The highest men’s seed to exit so far.

Dark Horses: Tommy Haas is back and looking great. He cut his hair, lost a good ten pounds and fired his long-time coach. The man is serious. Ask Richard Gasquet, who lost to Haas in straight sets in rather petulant fashion in the first round. His opponent in the fourth round, assuming he claws his way into it, would be Roger Federer.

And wouldn’t that be a lovely battle of lovely one-handed backhands?

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You’d think athletes are mostly a laconic bunch, not given to spouting off in any consistent way in public. This past week seems a little different in that regard, from two different sporting fronts.

As we rev up toward the Winter Olympics in a few weeks, U.S. ski champion Bode Miller has been offering up training tips on TV’s “60 Minutes” and he’s been causing a rucus. It seems Mr. Miller reported that he had, on occasion, raced while hung over from a night of drinking.

As the protests mounted and people called on Miller to apologize, I kept hoping someone would ask him what the slalom gates looked like as he came down the course. Were there twice the number in his fractured vision? I know on the rare occasions when I would work out stoned in the pool the lane lines on the bottom seemed to move up and down and around as I chugged from side to side. Surely ski gates must do the same, I pondered. They could have asked him if it feels any easier landing on your tush when you’re drunk as opposed to sober. But no one did. We were supposed to feel outraged and offended. I suppose I should feel a twinge of regret that Bode Miller is into more than just the Breakfast of Champions but I don’t. Sorry. Athletes are only slightly larger than life in my book, and I don’t expect them to be as pure as the driven snow. As long as they compete honestly and don’t run over anyone on their way to the finish line.

A more annoying boo-boo perhaps was what occurred in the world of tennis from the Heineken tournament in Auckland this past week. Teen sensation Andy Murray of Scotland put his foot in his mouth after completing his match against Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen when he said “we were both playing like women.” The crowd took great exception and pounced immediately upon the poor lad with a chorus of boos.

Andy should have remembered where he was. In a country where the Prime Minister is a woman and the populace gave women the right to vote way back in the 1890s. Gulp. And he should remember where he will be, starting Monday, for the next two weeks. He’ll really have to watch his mouthings in Australia, the Land of Manly Women and Manly Men. Sometimes I think there is very little difference between the two when it comes to sport. Someone advised me once that if I wanted to make inroads among Australian men I had better play “one of the boys.” It’s been exaggerated over the years, but it’s still true. The degree to which an Aussie man likes a girl can be measured by the degree to which she can be a good “mate.” Do they even use the term “wife” Down Under? I wonder. To be one of the boys, you have to knock back some serious slabs of tinnies in addition to hitting an inside-out forehand without your titties getting in the way. A tall order, but the women get the job done.

Even during the recent racially-tinged riots occurring around Sydney the women were caught on camera dukking it out with other women. “Good punch, honey,” I was thinking, before I caught myself in something resembling shame. It was a veritable free-for-all, and the women know they have a place at the table in that now too. Whether they should want to sit at that particular table is another matter.

So Andy Murray got wised up in a hurry. Reportedly he seemed rather stunned by the crowd’s reaction. And he is, in his defense, barely out of his teens. And he does come from a land where tennis still goes on in white costume only, thank you. And a country that is probably going to be the last Grand Slam tennis country to award equal prize money to the women.

This is Andy Murray’s first trip Down Under; he’s only been there a few weeks now. But after the Australian Open concludes, hopefully he can return to his native soil refreshed and carrying some new and democratic ideas to Old Europe.

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Now that the year-end championships are over, and our annual bout of tennis exhaustion is finally receding somewhat, we can look back and assess the year in tennis and forget we were swearing (not so long ago) that we would never look at a tennis ball again. Ever.

One word comes to mind: LONG. Whatever else we can say about it, the season is way too long. You know it’s a long season when even the tennis writers are crawling across the finish line with their tongues hanging out. You’d think my co-writer Nina Rota and I had played the entire season ourselves. After the U.S. Open concluded, she skulked off to Hawaii for a week, I disappeared into the Sierras. Tennis does that to you.

So that’s the first thing about the year we noticed. It is exhausting and long. If you have doubts, just look at the injured rosters as they piled up. We all hope the Powers That Be shorten the season in some fashion, but we all know that won’t happen. Greed Is Good, and when it comes to tennis, it’s also Great.

Part of what it may mean to be a “great” player is the player’s ability to schedule himself wisely. From this standpoint, I would say Roger Federer probably listened to his body better than anyone and didn’t play himself into the ground. He knew when to take time off, not only when he was injured, but even when he just needed more rest.

Rafael Nadal, on the other hand, seems to specialize in driving himself into the ground. He makes me feel tired and that’s just from watching him BETWEEN points. His schedule was exhausting. His style of playing takes a lot out of him too, and by the year’s end it did catch up to him. I don’t know who his advisors are, but they should think about reining him in a little.

There were other players who did well this year too, but basically it came down to the two leading players, Federer and Nadal. In any other year, Rafael Nadal would have been the leading light of his day. He played incredibly well and racked up a fantastic record too. But Roger Federer had an even better year, eclipsing Nadal’s.

And to think we’re going to get probably a good eight more years of this. Quel horreur!

The problem for the men’s field was to create enough good challengers to Roger’s crown. Several men came out of the gate, notably Marat Safin and Andre Agassi, who stood a chance to beat Federer in the big matches. And there were a few chances for the upcoming players too, such as Richard Gasquet, who beat Federer in the spring at Monte Carlo, one of the smaller lead up tournaments to the French Open.

The men’s championship at year’s end should not be a “smaller” tournament but it proved that way when most of the field pulled out, and suddenly you had guys entering the fray – David Nalbandian, Mariano Puerta and Fernando Gonzalez – who would not have been there otherwise. It should have been a bigger tournament with a stronger field. Fortunately, David Nalbandian helped to rescue things by providing a strong challenge to Federer and delivering only one of his four losses this year.

While the men’s field basically distilled itself down into two leading players, the women’s tour exploded into an array of new configurations of well-matched players, and the results in tournaments reflected that diversity. Every woman seemed to garnish a piece of the pie. I almost forgot that Venus and Serena both won Grand Slams. That’s because a bevy of other players won titles too. Kim Clijsters gave us one of the best moments when she finally won a Slam herself. Justine Henin-Hardenne mounted a fine comeback. Maria Sharapova was all over the place, and so was Lindsay Davenport, although she had more ups than downs overall.

The Russians in general seemed to follow Sharapova’s suit and a number of them went right into the tank this year in matches. I keep saying that the reason all the Russians have had such good technique is that they have to hold those spikey temperaments at bay. Technique helps maintain control. Even so, they may be too anal, too perfectionist to be consistently great players, and they get down and beat themselves when they get mad. So sue me.

And Mary Pierce. Everyone coos about Mary’s comeback this year. I feel strangely above all this feel-goodness. When Mary was good, she was very very good. When she was bad, she was very very bad. She did a variation on Amelie Mauresmo’s usual riff, bulldozing the field up until the final, and then going out meekly like a lamb to the slaughter. She had a great resurgence at age 30, but for some reason I don’t have much faith she can carry it into 2006. Maybe because I have put faith in her before and seen my hopes dashed. Maybe because she can turn on a dime and go from being really good to playing like a piker the next day. I just don’t feel she will cash in next year. I don’t want to invest myself in her as a spectator.

The best thing about men’s tennis in 2005: Roger Federer, followed closely by Rafael Nadal’s emergence into superstardom at age 19.

The best thing about women’s tennis: it is now truly competitive. Maybe soon they can shame us into equal pay for the women.

Roger Federer and Marat Safin started the year off with a big bang down under, two artistes going at it in five intense sets. We were all savoring the prospect of Safin emerging as Federer’s main rival. But instead he falters, then becomes injured.

Fortunately for Roger Federer and the rest of us, Rafael Nadal breaks out at the French Open, winning his first slam on nearly the same day he turns 19.

Venus and Lindsay competed in a duel for the ages in the Wimbledon Women’s Final. Venus played remarkably well and deserved to win. On any other day Lindsay would have deserved it. I think this was the match that won it this year for passionate intensity. The number one thriller of the year.

And then Venus went and put her foot in her mouth with her comment about her biggest moment of the year being not the Wimbledon win, but attending her sister’s prom. I feel embarrassed for her when she does stuff like that. It shows a certain disrespect for the tour and the sport that allowed her to HAVE that reality TV show that everyone apparently just LOVED to watch. I try to focus on her play at Wimbledon.

Kim Clijsters not only staged a remarkable comeback, she worked her way easily through the draw at the U.S. Open and finally snagged that elusive first big title. Hopefully now the others will just flow.

Roger Federer continued to cruise along. He lost only three matches going into November, to Safin, Gasquet, abd Nadal. After the Nadal loss, which occurrs in the French Open semis, Federer still carries on his winning streak that extends to the last match of the year – 23 finals won in a row – before losing in the Shanghai year-end final to David Nalbandian. And he loses in a way that is so remarkable that he STILL takes your breath away, even in defeat.

The two young lions meet early in the year, when Federer beats Nadal in five tough sets in April at the Nasdaq Miami. But Nadal beats Federer later in the spring at the French Open on the way to his first Grand Slam. He is a hottie for sure, and will add some genuine fire to compete against Federer’s cool Suisse. But after those encounters, the pair do not meet again.

In Shanghai, Nadal pulls out because of injury and the expected Federer-Nadal showdown final never occurs. The Chinese have every right to be annoyed. They’ll probably be among the first to lobby the Powers That Be to shorten the season so the top players don’t arrive on their doorstep in Shanghai utterly stripped of purpose and energy to play. And worn out from injuries. Of course they dropped like flies. The Chinese are right to feel they kinda got snookered. Andre should have said something first to the Chinese officals. He should have known the etiquette, he’s usually attuned to stuff like that.

And lastly, the Americans were not completely without hope. Andre Agassi held up his end in losing to Roger Federer in the U.S.Open Final, but the standard of tennis was amazingly high. That match could be a turning point for Andre, it could convince him to play for at least three more years, barring injury. It was that good. He still has it.

Robbie Ginepri turned it on consistently through the summer and into the Open, before going down in the semis. A little belief in yourself goes a long way. James Blake had a fine resurgence after a harrowing 2004, filled with injuries and personal loss. His victory over Rafael Nadal at the US Open was one of the great feel-goods of the year.

Andy Roddick is already talking about his plans to be more aggressive with his return game when the season starts. That is good, because this past year should be quickly forgotten from Roddick’s standpoint. Fortunately for him there are now a good handful of guys of whom much is expected this coming year. Maybe the expectations for him will not be as intense.

My personal highpoint of the year:

The third set tiebreak, U.S. Open Final
Roger Federer-Andre Agassi
They had split the first two sets, but clearly the tide had turned against Roger, and the crowd was certainly with Andre at this point.

Federer suddenly shifted into high gear, reached inside somewhere to a place of calm and battened down all the hatches, lost the first tiebreak point, then uncoiled with seven straight points to win the set. And, really, the match. Agassi was crushed, and it went quickly from there on out. It was one of the most ferocious displays in such a concentrated period I have seen in a while on a tennis court.

Welcome to the tennis year of 2005. Yes, you are in the Age of Roger Federer.

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