2009's stories in tennis

2009 was a compelling year in tennis. We saw a record broken, a young American light up England and New York, and an outburst in New York. Hard to fathom that one of the top stories of the year doesn't include a former Grnad Slam winner. That's only because of what else happened.

5. The return of Kim Clijsters

Clijsters walked away from tennis and was ready to settle down to be a mother and wife. But something was drawing her back. And the tennis world was blessed to see her performance in New York. It even inspired former #1 Justine Henin to return. What makes Clijsters run to the U.S. Open title extremely impressive is who she defeated. #3 Venus Williams, #18 Na Li, #2 Serena Williams, #9 Caroline Wozniacki. Four straight seeds faced, four straight seeds defeated.

4. Richard Gasquet dodges suspension.

On July 15, it was announced that Gasquet would not face any type of suspension as the result of a positive test in March. What was in Gasqet's urine sample? Cocaine. The most surprising part of this story is how Gasquet told the International Tennis Federation the cocaine got in his system. Gasquet told the ITF's panel that he kissed a woman in a nightclub. That was his defense...and the ITF bought it. Well, it was also presented that Gasquet barely had any cocaine in his system at the time of the test, but he did have it in his system.

3. Serena's U.S. Open

It was the semi-finals when it happened. The world's #2 player, Serena Williams, was playing the eventual winner, unseeded Kim Clijsteres. Williams was called for a foot fault by a line judge. She could not believe that such a call was made. Williams strode in the direction of the judge and began to tirade her for what Williams viewed as a bad call. After Serena was done, the judge went to the referee and before we all knew it, Clijsters was awarded a point due to an earlier outburst from Serena. That meant the match was also over and Clijsters was the victor and advancing to the finals. Williams was fined over $80 grand for this outburst.

2. Melanie Oudin

No American drew more attention this past summer than Oudin. It began at Wimbledon when Oudin ousted  #6 seed Jelena Jankovic in three sets. to advance to the second week. Her stay wouldn't last much longer. Oudin had a chance to advance further and she pushed #11 seed Agnieszka Radwanska for two difficult sets, but Oudin dropped the match. That magic would travel with Oudin to New York. Oudin would drop a quarterfinal match to eventual runner-up #9 seed Catherine Wozniacki, but Melanie would leave a trail of impressive three set wins in her wake (#13 Nadia Petrova, #29 Maria Sharapova and #4 Elena Dementieva). Did I mention that she's only 18?

1. Roger Federer

Three things about Fed's year. He finally won in Paris. That meant he finally got his career slam. Federer also broke Pete Sampras' record for lifetime Grand Slam wins. Federer broke the record at Wimbledon against Andy Roddick in what could only be termed as the match of the year. Breaking Sampras' record wasn't enough as Pete himself attended the affair and witness the passing of the torch to Roger. All of this and Federer became a father. Could anyone ask for more from a year?

Next for us? we'll take a look at 2009 from college football.