That's it. Ten months of exchanges with the little yellow ball on courts 78 feet long and 36 feet wide across the world. It’s time for a well-earned break. We're going to have to find a way to fill the void now.
......
That's it. Ten months of exchanges with the little yellow ball on courts 78 feet long and 36 feet wide across the world. It’s time for a well-earned break. We're going to have to find a way to fill the void now.
... November and December are here, the worst months of the year.
... You have never watched ESPN classic so much.
... You spare a thought for Andy Roddick.
... Finally the players can go home: Djoko to Belgrade, Rafa to Manacor, Roger to Basel and Tsonga to Geneva.
... The media make all kind of graphics summarizing the year just to end up saying the same thing they've been saying for months: the big four have won it all.
... You find out that Arnaud Clement has retired too. But you also discover that he was still playing.
... You're still impatiently waiting for the Doha tournament. Yes, an ATP 250.
... Roger leaves to double his yearly earnings on the December Gillette Federer Tour in South America.
... You see pictures of Nadal on a jet ski in the Daily Mail.
... You can still see the pros play in the finales of their national championships.
... Gael Monfils is spending the holidays with his physio and Paul Henri Matthieu is in intensive care.
... David Ferrer wins tournaments... exhibition tournaments.
... You hear of doubles tournaments with unknown players.
... You will have to wait for six long weeks before seeing the colour of a Grand Slam.
... You will have to wait for six long weeks to be astonished by an incredible Novak Djokovic point. That he should have lost five times. At least.
... You will miss Andy Murray's girlfriend and her Ray-Bans.
... You won't miss Andy Murray's mother
... Hawk-Eye is, technically, unemployed.
... Maria Sharapova's vocal cords go back to their normal size.
... TV newsrooms reassign their tennis journalists to other sports.
... Novak Djokovic stops bouncing the ball 36 times.
... You sleep properly. Obviously, as you're no longer connected to another time zone....
…Every Monday, you compulsively press F5 on your laptop to refresh the page but there's nothing to do about it, the ATP rankings invariably remains the same as last week. And the week before.
... Your tennis news-feed is drier than your lips after a day of skiing.
... It was the last "You know that" of the year and we wish you a merry end of the world.
By Pierre Girard and Jérémy Francisco
