Looking forward to 2009

Even though tennis has the shortest off-season of any major sport, I still found it very hard to get through. I'm looking forward to the start of next year's tennis season, which I'm taking as an opportunity to revive my regular commentary on this blog.

It will be tough for 2009 to compete with 2008, which was definitely the most exciting year since I started paying attention to tennis. Of course, that was only in 2005, but still. Even though Federer's complete and utter dominance dropped by a notch, he still had a year that every other tennis in the world (but one) would have traded for. It will be interesting to see how he does this year.

I'll try to make some predictions for 2009 by the end of this week, and then take a look at the first week's tournaments over the weekend, once the draws are posted. The Qatar Open has Nadal, Federer, Murray, and Roddick (supposedly) so it looks like we're getting this season started with a bang.