It’s Christmas night and 2010 is almost over.

Let’s take a look back at the year in review.

Roger Federer wins the Australian Open. The year began with an earthquake in Haiti.  Roger Federer and tournament organizers got several pros, including Rafael Nadal, Lleyton Hewitt, and Kim Clijsters to play in a charity event just before the start of the tournament.  Meanwhile, Andy Murray chose to skip Doha (an event Davydenko won beating Federer and Nadal en route) and play Hopman Cup.  Murray’s ranking slipped to 5 and he met Nadal in the quarters.  Nadal retired and wouldn’t play for a few months.  Murray, meanwhile, hoped his steady play would beat Roger Federer, but it was too much.  Meanwhile, after the Tsonga semifinal, Federer had a hilarious interview with Jim Courier doing commentary for Australia.

Juan Martin del Potro shuts it down after the Australian Open. del Potro had a wrist injury, got surgery in March or April, and didn’t expect to return until Bangkok, after the US Open.  The defending US Open champ played and lost in two first round matches before deciding to shut it down again until the new year.  His lack of impact meant Federer and Nadal had one less person to deal with.

Davydenko breaks wrist and fades down the stretch. For the second year in a row, Davydenko has an injury that takes him off the tour for a few months.  Unlike 2009, where Davydenko recovers by the French Open then has a fantastic end of the year, culminating in the ATP World Tour Finals title, Davydenko is a shell of himself after his return shortly before Wimbledon and lets his rank slip to 22 by the end of the year.

Murray is down in the dumps for the early part of the year. Murray was defending champ at Rotterdam, but already had not planned to play in the Netherlands, and chose to return at Marseille.  However, he skipped Marseille.  The tournament director was upset saying he should be banned from some tournament play.  Murray, feeling the backlash, decides to play Dubai, which he hoped to skip as well.   He lost to Tipsarevic, claiming he was treating it like a practice match.  Organizers in Dubai also upset.  Djokovic able to defend his title as Roger Federer had an illness that kept him from returning to play in his second home.

Andy Roddick peaks, Ljubicic wins an elusive Masters, and Nadal continues title drought. And Federer begins a trend of losing matches with match points up.  As the seeds fell by the wayside, Roddick faces Ljubicic in the finals of Indian Wells.  Federer had lost to Baghdatis, despite being match points up.  Nadal was up a set, but Ljubicic came back to win in three sets and dominates a third set tiebreak.  Nadal has not won a title since Rome.  Roddick would come back in Miami to beat Tomas Berdych in the finals.  Berdych upset Federer who again, had a match point to win the match.  Murray would lose early to Mardy Fish.  He also lost to Soderling in the quarters of Indian Wells.

Nadal returns to form, Verdasco burns out, Ferrer peaks, Federer struggles. As Monte Carlo approached, Nadal had not won a tournament since Rome, nearly a year earlier.  However, he goes on a huge tear and dominates everyone including a hapless Verdasco who wins only one game.  Djokovic loses tamely to Verdasco.  Murray goes down tamely to Kohlschreiber.

Nadal skips Barcelona where he had been five time defending champ to protect his knees.  Verdasco would beat Soderling in the finals.  Ferrer would reach the semifinals.  In Rome, Ferrer would beat Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Fernando Verdasco to reach the finals where he’d lose, not surprisingly, to Rafael Nadal.  Gulbis upsets Roger Federer in the second round and reaches the semifinals of Rome and becomes the first player in the main clay season to take a set off Nadal.  Nadal still wins and beats Ferrer in the finals.

Federer plays Estoril where he’s the top seed by a long shot, but loses in the damp conditions to Spaniard Alberto Montanes.  Frederico Gil, a Portuguese player, reaches the final and has a shot at winning the first ATP title for a Portuguese since, well, perhaps ever, but loses to Montanes, the defending champ.  Federer claims all will be fine for Madrid.

Federer beats Gulbis in three sets in Madrid, meets Nadal in the final, but loses in two tight sets.  Nadal makes the sweep winning Monte Carlo, Rome, and Madrid, and now wants to add the French Open to the streak.

Nadal claims fifth French title, Federer loses before semis, Soderling upsets defending champion again. Nadal cruises to another clay title not dropping a set.  Jurgen Melzer, who had never gotten past the fourth round of a major, makes the semis when he upsets Novak Djokovic in the quarters after being down two sets to love.  This is the second straight Slam that Djokovic has faded after taking the lead.  Tomas Berdych steamrolls to the semifinals, and Soderling beats Federer in the quarterfinals, then barely staves off Berdych to play Nadal in the final.  Despite trying to blast Nadal off the court, Soderling eventually succumbs to Nadal’s ability to get back hard shot after hard shot, and fails to take a set.

Querrey wins Queens when seeds disappear left and right, Nadal takes Wimbledon as Federer falls in the quarters again. With a scant two weeks between the French and Wimbledon, many players choose to play Queen’s to warm up for the big W.  However, seeds fall left and right at Queen’s.  Djokovic loses to Malisse.  Roddick loses to Sela.  Cilic loses to Llodra.  Nadal loses to Lopez.  Murray loses to Fish a second time in 2010 (the first time at Miami).  Querrey becomes the highest seed standing and beats fellow American, Fish, in the finals.

Although Wimbledon should have been noted for Nadal’s second title, the week began with the match that wouldn’t end.  John Isner and Nicolas Mahut would play a fifth set that was longer than most five setters.  The match would run over 3 days and test the concentration of both players.  Isner would eventually secure a break when he managed to pass at match point.  The various participants, including chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani, were given prizes by the Wimbledon organizers.  Isner would lose in the second round against Thiemo de Bakker hitting nary an ace.

Nadal’s route to the finals was no means guaranteed. He would get two scares, from Robin Haase in the second round, and Philipp Petzschner in the third round, being pushed to five sets each.  He gets his game in order, and beats Robin Soderling once again, and then plays a tight match against Andy Murray, and the Brit hopes to win Wimbledon are thwarted once again.  Meanwhile, Berdych upsets Federer in the quarterfinals, then beat Djokovic who finally managed to get past the quarterfinals, but couldn’t get to the round he should have reached once Federer was out.  Nadal handles Berdych, and claims his second Slam of the year.

France sweeps Spain 5-0 in Davis Cup. Spain was the defending champ.  But without Nadal, and with a fast indoor court, France used Llodra to get a win over Verdasco and a key doubles win to help upset Spain.

Mardy Fish has a good summer.  Murray and Federer get back on track. As he exited Wimbledon, Federer whined that injuries to his back and leg prevented him from playing his best at the French or Wimbledon.  Certainly, he didn’t look on form.  However, some said Federer should have kept quiet.  The top players basically took a break (except Djokovic who played Davis Cup) until Toronto.

In the meanwhile, Fish won Newport, being one of the higher ranked players to play Newport in quite some time.  He would win Atlanta, then take a break to do more training, and reach the finals of Cincinnati where he would lose to Roger Federer (but he beat Andy Murray once again).  Everyone would talk about how much weight he lost and how he would be a threat to go deep in the US Open.

After a lackluster year up to this point, Andy Murray beat a resurgent David Nalbandian, who single-handedly helped Argentina beat Russia in Russia.  Davydenko was so stricken by a lack of confidence that he wanted to beg out of playing the reverse singles.  His wife put the kibosh on that and Davydenko won that reverse singles against Zeballos (what happened to Monaco?).

Murray showed that he does have power.  He beat an admittedly tired Nalbadian in the quarterfinals, then toppled Rafael Nadal, then beat Roger Federer who beat Djokovic in the semifinals, to wrap up one of the best weeks of his life.

Murray would struggle with the heat in Cincinnati, lose to Mardy Fish.  Fish would reach his first Masters 1000 final since, well, since he last upset Roger Federer in Indian Wells several years earlier.  Fish would take a set off of the Swiss maestro, but Federer would claim only his second title of the year.  Meanwhile, Nadal would lose to Marcos Baghdatis making Baghdatis one of the few players to beat both Nadal and Federer in the same year.  Experts would claim that Nadal, who had looked shaky in Toronto and Cincy, was no longer a favorite and that Murray and Federer were now the favorites to win the US Open.

Nadal wins third Slam and Djokovic gets Federer monkey off back. Roger Federer, for the second year in a row, hits a tweener.  This time, opponent Brian Dabul is at the baseline as he’s just hit a lob that pushes Federer to the back fence and Fed hits a shot behind him.

Andy Murray, once again, pinned his hopes on a Slam at the US Open, and for a second year in a row, lost disappointingly, this time to Stanislas Wawrinka.  Djokovic would play Federer for the fourth year in a row (losing in the finals in 2007, the semis in 2008 and 2009).  Federer again had match points, but Djokovic, tired of losing to Federer again, blasted his way out of break points and then managed to win the match.  He would lose somewhat tamely to Nadal, despite a rain delay (the third year in a row) that pushed the finals to Monday.

Federer, Murray, Djokovic, and Nadal play good tennis after the US Open. Nadal loses in Bangkok to Garcia-Lopez making him the second Lopez that he has lost to that year (Lopez beat him in Queen’s Club).  Nadal almost loses to Troicki in the semis of Tokyo, needing to save match points.  Nadal wins in a close tiebreak, then easily handles Monfils in the finals.  Meanwhile, Djokovic wins Beijing.  In Shanghai, Murray wins the title by beating Roger Federer once again.  Federer wins Stockholm to tie Sampras’s singles titles, then wins Basel over Djokovic to break the record.

Soderling wins Paris over Monfils who upsets Federer in the semifinals.  Federer had 5 match points (all break points), but fails to close out Monfils.  However, Federer has had an excellent post US Open, reaching a final (losing to Murray), a semifinal (losing to Monfils), winning two titles (Stockholm, Basel).

Federer wins year-end championship. En route, he beats Murray, Soderling, Ferrer, Djokovic, and Nadal.  Nadal sweeps his group 3-0, beats Murray in the best match of the tournament (some say, of the year).

Serbia claims Davis Cup win over France. Both captains elect to play their third string players on the first day including Gilles Simon (who loses to Djokovic) and Janko Tipsarevic (who loses to Monfils).  France wins the key doubles, then Djokovic beats Monfils, leaving the last match to Troicki and Llodra, who both played a five sets doubles match the previous day.  Troicki wins easily.  The entire team shaves their head.   The tennis season is over.

Nadal ends the year at number 1, claiming 3 of 4 Slams for the first time in his career.  Meanwhile, Federer would win his fifth year-end championship.  All in all, a good ending for the top two players in the world.