Nadal's Ace, Lewis' race and Ron's pace

TENNIS

What a year for tennis, what a year for Rafael Nadal.

The Spaniard swept through the French Open, his fourth consecutive clay-court Grand Slam, won at Wimbledon for the first time and claimed a gold medal at the Olympic games.

In Paris, Nadal did not drop a set and beat then-world No1 Roger Federer in the final – losing only four games – but it was on the lush courts of the All England Lawn Tennis Club that he really made a statement.

Wimbledon, so long Fortress Federer, witnessed a battle of epic proportions and, after four hours and 48 minutes, the final – now widely regarded as the greatest match ever played – ended with Nadal as champion.

He had to wait until August though to be ranked No 1 when, after 237-weeks of Federer, someone new was on top.

It was a year also in which 21-year-old Andy Murray released his first autobiography – to coincide with Wimbledon in July. At the time, the Scot was not even in the top 10 and he has still yet to win a Grand Slam. The fact he dedicated an entire page to how much he hates bananas, is a good indicator of the book's merit.

However, he must have realised it soon afterwards because he suddenly turned things around, turned the page, started a new chapter – on his career.

He shot up the rankings.

At the US Open Murray made it to the final. Having beaten Federer in Dubai earlier in the year, he was in high spirits, but the Swiss ace was too good. Murray exacted revenge by knocking the former world No1 out of the Shanghai Masters last month and ended 2008 ranked world No4.

In the women's game, 26-year-old Justine Henin quit the sport days before she was to defend her French Open crown leaving the No1 spot vacant.

A season-long battle ensued and four different women won the Grand Slams – Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Serena Williams and sister Venus. But, surprisingly, it was Serb Jelena Jankovic who ended the year at the top of the WTA rankings.

FOOTBALL

In England, Manchester United and Chelsea fought for the Premier league title down to the last day – at the end it was that experienced and canny Scottish Knight, Alex Ferguson, who won the battle.

A week later, he won the war as well, when the Red Devils met and defeated Avram Grant's Chelsea 6-5 on penalties in the Champions League final in Moscow. It was Sir Alex's 22nd trophy in 22 years of management.

Checkmate then for Grant as he was given the sack by his "pal", Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich and replaced by Luiz Felipe Scolari. He was not horribly popular with the British media and even his own fans since he replaced Jose Mourinho and, even if Blues captain John Terry had not slipped and mis-hit what would have been the winning penalty, he probably would have got the boot anyway.

If Ferguson is the Knight and Grant likened to a Pawn, then Cristiano Ronaldo has to be the King, Queen and everything else. The United winger was in sensational scoring form bagging 42 goals to put himself head, shoulders and a whole tub of hair gel in front of anyone as a candidate for the Fifa Player of the Year. He has already been awarded the Ballon d'Or.

In the European Championship, Luis Aragones' Spain did their best to match Manchester United as the football team of the year. Fernando Torres and David Villa tore apart opposition defences to help their country to a well-deserved first title in 44 years.

The tournament also saw World Champions Italy disappoint and France coach Raymond Domenech propose to a television reporter interviewing him live, after his team got knocked out. Italy coach Roberto Donadoni soon got fired and was replaced by his predecessor, 2006 World Cup winning coach, Marcello Lippi (and Domenech is still not married).

In other notable managerial changes, the Special One returned to the game as Inter Milan coach (even though Roberto Mancini won the Serie A), Frank Rikjaard was sacked by Barcelona, Real Madrid kept up their policy of firing title-winning coaches by replacing Bernd Schuster with Juande Ramos (who was not very popular among Tottenham players for banning chips and tomato ketchup from their canteen) and the legendary Diego Maradona was appointed as Argentina coach.

Meanwhile in August, Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment bought Manchester City – making them the richest club in the world. They hijacked a Chelsea deal with Real Madrid on the final day of the transfer window and grabbed Robinho, breaking the British transfer record and making him the highest-paid football player in the world.

Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, the then frontman for the group, promised that the club would buy Ronaldo, Torres, Kaka and Buffon... in the January transfer window.

This prompted City fans to shout chants such as "Shall we buy you a new defender?" and "Shall we buy you louder fans?" to their opposition supporters, but perhaps they were being too generous – as Mark Hughes side now sit in the relegation zone.

Charity begins at home, the old adage goes, and if that's true for City next month, Hughes will be doing some belated Christmas shopping, credit crunch or not.

FORMULA ONE 

Lewis Hamilton left it until the last turn on the last lap of the last race to move into the last possible position he could finish in, to win his first Formula One Championship by one point over Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

It proved, some would say, that the McLaren driver is growing wiser with experience – although his decision to skip England and live in Switzerland to avoid paying tax could also prove that. Why do you need to stress out and fight for a win when you can cruise around Interlagos until some 900 metres before the finish line, slip into fifth position and still be crowned champion?

This boy is a canny operator.

The 23-year-old did only win five of the 18 races though, one less than Massa – who would have been crowned champion had Bernie Ecclestone's not so popular idea, of giving the top three drivers medals and forgetting about the rest, been implemented.

However, the Brazilian need not look outside the Ferrari garage for a someone to blame for his failure. In fact, he can start with a mirror. What was he thinking in Singapore when he drove off with the fuel hose still stuck in his car? A highly paid F1 star trying to steal petrol? For anyone who, up until that point, didn't realise that the world is suffering from a financial crisis – you couldn't have got a clearer example.

Anywhere else in the world, you would call that "daylight robbery", in Singapore though – the sun had already set. Formula One's first night race took place and it will go down in the books as a success.

Something else Massa needs to learn is how to drive in the wet. Watching him skidding and spinning in circles around a wet Silverstone was not a pretty sight, especially since Hamilton was cruising 68 seconds in front of everybody.

Meanwhile, 2007 champion Kimi Raikonnen had a tumultuous year and was out of contention well before the final race of the year.

Fernando Alonso, who left McLaren in less than amicable circumstances last year, rejoined Renault and showed just how talented he is by winning back-to-back Grand Prix's in a car that was just not up to standard. He was rewarded by being named the "driver of the season".

The highlight though was the emergence of BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel.

Poland's Kubica scored his first victory in Montreal, which will no longer host F1 races, and turned the F1 Championship into a three-way battle for a while. Germany's Vettel became the youngest race winner at the Italian Grand Prix, aged 21.

Super Aguri pulled out of Formula One after four races and Honda followed suit at the season's end – as did Britain's 13-time race winner David Coulthard.

With Honda out, Brazilian Rubens Barichello may just have to call time on his career as well and he will end on a record 271 Grand Prix starts.

In the World Rally Championship, Frenchman Sebastien Loeb defended the Drivers' World Championship ahead of the Abu Dhabi sponsored BP-Ford drivers Mikko Hirvonen, Jari-Matti Latvala and Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi. It was Loeb's fifth consecutive title. Ford also lost their Manufacturers' title to Loeb's Citroen team.

In MotoGP, Valentino Rossi was back at the top with the Italian claiming his eight World title for Yamaha ahead of Ducati's Casey Stoner.

RUGBY

World Champions South Africa ended rock-bottom in the Tri-Nations table leaving an under-pressure Springbok coach Pieter de Villiers to compare himself to Jesus and quote the Bible in press conferences.

New Zealand bounced back from a horrible showing at the 2007 World Cup and their decision to retain coach Graham Henry paid dividends as the All Blacks won their fourth consecutive Tri Nations, a third Grand Slam and the Bledisloe Cup. In all, they lost only two matches in 2008.

Meanwhile, up North, Wales under the stewardship of Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards swept through the Six Nations undefeated winning the Grand Slam.

Welsh winger Shane Williams was sensational throughout the tournament and was deservedly acknowledged as the IRB Player of the Year.

English coach Brian Ashton's stormy reign ended after the Six Nations and the position was given to 2003 World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson, who so far has done his best to prove the adage that 'good players don't always make good coaches'.

The Dubai Sevens moved venue this year to the aptly titled "The Sevens". More than 50,000 specatators were on hand to witness South Africa win the inaugural tournament.

CRICKET

Australia started 2008 on a high, winning a record 16th consecutive Test ; they ended the year on a smashing low after landing on a rock solid South African touring team Down Under.

In between came the fall for the No 1 ranked team, who are struggling to replace their former stalwarts such as Glen McGrath and Shane Warne. Australia lost a Test Series 2-0 in India and should they continue on this path – South Africa, India and even England could hop above them in the rankings.

For India, it was a topsy-turvy year.

They lost the Test series in Australia, but won the ODI's. They lost to Sri Lanka away, but beat Australia and England at home.

Their spinner Harbhajan Singh called Andrew Symonds a "monkey" or something entirely different (depending whose story you want to believe), which almost caused the Australia Tests to be cancelled. A couple of months later, Singh was banned for slapping his India teammate Shantakumaran Sreesanth in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The multi-billion dollar IPL was a real success from an audience point of view – not all the players were pleased though with the strange auction trends. Uncapped David Hussey, for example, was paid more than his brother Michael Hussey (who has the second highest average in the history of the game) or Australia captain Ricky Ponting.

Michael Vaughan resigned as England captain after his team lost a Test series to the Proteas, and South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen was named in his place.

Texas-born billionaire Allen Stanford decided to get in on the Twenty20 bandwagon by proposing a $20 million (Dh73.4m) winner takes all match with England and a West Indies XI. Great concept, pathetic match.

In the end, he flirted with the England player's wives and girlfriends on the sidelines to unsettle them and they lost. Stanford though, was the real loser.

Reports say he lost up to $40m. Amid the chaos, one man stood out – Shivnarine Chanderpaul. The left-hander picked up the ICC Player of the Year award.

GOLF

In June, Tiger Woods proved, once again, just how good he is by winning the US Open on one leg.

Limping around with a knee injury, the World No 1 hit Torrey Pines by storm to clinch what he called his "most impressive" Major win.

Then off he went for surgery and missed the rest of the year. Not a worry though, with the lead he has over the rest of the pack he could take a sabbatical until year 2077 and still come back on top.

While he was away Padraig Harrington had a field day becoming the first European and only the fourth player ever to win successive Majors (the British Open and the US PGA Championship).

In the highly anticipated Ryder Cup the American team was expected to suffer once again especially with Woods missing.

European captain Nick Faldo was cheery and confident, so much so that he let his pairings "slip-out" in the media before the tournament and then tried to pass it off as a "sandwich-order".

His lame joke backfired and he was left with egg on his face as Europe were soundly defeated by Paul Alzinger's American team. New-boy Anthony Kim was impressive, especially in his win over Spain's Sergio Garcia.

The "Race to Dubai", which will culminate in the $20 million (Dh73.4m) Dubai World Championship in November, got under way in Shanghai, with Garcia winning the event. In the women's arena, 10-time Major winner Annika Sorenstam ended her illustrious career at the Dubai Ladies Masters, stepping away to focus on her business interests.

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