It was a year of contrasts for tennis. While the men’s game played out in predictable fashion, with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic sharing the main prizes between them, the women’s tour was once again turned on its head.
For the second year running, the sport was treated to four different women Grand Slam champions as the orthodoxy of the old guard found itself unravelling.
Veterans such as Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova both missed out to youth, outfoxed and outplayed by a crop of rising stars who, collectively, have come to paint a bright future for the women’s game.
In the men’s, though, there seems to be no end in sight to the dominance of two players who, alongside Roger Federer, have helped shape the landscape over the past decade and a half. Although Federer’s authority may be waning somewhat – he has not won a Grand Slam since January 2018 – both Nadal and Djokovic continue to assert themselves with punitive supremacy.
Here, we look back over the defining images of 2019:
