ITF

competition, it was very special that the victorious Czech team from 1980 was on hand to celebrate with them. No story about men's tennis in 2012 would be complete without a mention of the Bryan brothers, our Men's Doubles World Champions for the ninth time, and also of Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen's triumph at Wimbledon. The ATP World Tour Finals doubles title was won by Spain's Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez. Our ITF Women's World Champion Serena Williams proved once again that she is the force to be reckoned with in women's tennis, winning Wimbledon, the Olympic gold medal in singles and doubles, the US Open and the WTA Championships. Only Victoria Azarenka, who won her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open and reached the finals at the US Open, and Maria Sharapova who completed a career Grand Slam at Roland Garros, was a finalist at the Australian Open and the WTA Championships and won the silver medal at the Olympics, were major contenders on the women's side. Sara Errani and Agnieszka Radwanska had career defining moments in singles, reaching the finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon respectively. Errani and Roberta Vinci won eight doubles titles including Roland Garros and the US Open to finish the year as ITF Women's Doubles World Champions, while Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova prevailed at the WTA Championships. Czech Republic successfully defended their Fed Cup title, defeating Serbia, in what was a tour de force by their No. 2 Lucie Safarova in the final. Safarova, Petra Kvitova and their great doubles team, Olympic silver medallists Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, were the darlings of the sold-out O2 Arena in Prague. The junior game was dominated by Filip Peliwo of Canada and Taylor Townsend of the United States with strong performances from Belgium's Kimmer Coppejans and Canada's Eugenie Bouchard. There is an extraordinary amount of talent in the junior game at the moment and I look forward to seeing how they progress in the next few years. In the junior team competitions, USA won the boys and Slovak Republic the girls at the World Junior Tennis Finals in Prostejov, while the American girls took the Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas and the Italian boys the Junior Davis Cup by BNP Paribas. Esther Vergeer and Stephane Houdet are our Wheelchair World Champions; Vergeer for the 13th time and Houdet for the first. Vergeer secured her seventh and eighth medals at the 2012 Paralympics, former world No. 1 Shingo Kunieda claimed his second gold medal while Noam Gershony won the quad singles. The Paralympics received huge support from the spectators in London and on television around the world and wheelchair tennis was one of the triumphs of the Games. (continued overleaf) REVIEW OF THE YEAR 3

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