Winners

1 Rafael Nadal
A fourth consecutive French Open, a first Wimbledon, Olympic Gold, the world No 1 ranking, plus titles in Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Hamburg, Queen's Club and Toronto, a year in which his talents and his temperament simply took the breath away. Nadal lost just one of 23 matches on European clay, won every match on grass and drew admirers everywhere he went. He wrote a pretty mean blog for The Times as well.

2 Andy Murray
The 21-year-old from Dunblane reached a grand-slam final for the first time at the US Open, and won two Masters Series titles (his first) in Cincinnati and Madrid and debuted at the Masters Cup in Shanghai . He also defeated Roger Federer on three occasions - losing to him in the New York final, Novak Djokovic twice and Rafael Nadal once. Murray finished the year ranked No 4 and not only has his game improved but so, too, has his entire demeanour.

3 Chris Eaton
Very few of us had heard of the 20 (now 21)-year-old from Guildford until he blazed through the Wimbledon qualifying competition at Roehampton (serving 32 aces in the final round against Olivier Patience of France), and won a round at the championships proper against Boris Pashanki of Serbia on Court No 3, a victory that enthralled a nation and turned quite a few girls' heads. Has risen from No 657 at the start of the year to No 385 at its close. Hopefully this is just the start.

4 Martina Navratilova
When one learned that the greatest ever woman champion had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity.. Get Me Out Of Here, the tendency was to think that she had lost her marbles. But, though she was beaten in the final by Joe Swash, once of EastEnders, Martina's straightforwardness, decency and courage, that those of us who cover tennis had always known she possessed, shone through the entirety of the competition. Whatever next for her?

5 Anne Keothavong
She started the year ranked No 132 and most in the game would have been glad just to see her finishing it around the 100 mark. Instead, on the back of four ITF women's circuit singles titles and a win-loss record of 52-28 this year, Anne has soared to the heady heights of No 61, by far her career best and has made it her stated ambition to become a top 50 player. Her three set victory over Francesca Schiavone, of Italy, in the second round of the US Open was one of the most courageous by a British woman in a grand slam for many a long year.

6 Fernando Verdasco
When he was beaten in the third round of the Paris Masters by Andy Murray on November 1, I would have been hard pressed to consider him for nomination for this category but what transpired thereafter was quite extraordinary. Verdasco was already Ana Ivanovic's boyfriend (A Net Post exclusive) and had posed naked for a cancer charity, but when he was called into Spain's squad for the Davis Cup Final in Argentina few would have said he would be the man to play - and win - the decisive rubber. And he completed the year ranked No 16 in the world. Quite a year when all said and done.

7 Nikolay Davydenko
The Russian spent the first half of 2008 having to fend off endless questions about a match he had played in August, 2007, upon which all bets were called void when over £30 million was laid on him to lose. The ATP, the governing body of men's tennis, looked as far as it could into every nook and cranny of the affair and eventually, having exhausted all avenues of investigation, declared both he and Martin Vassallo Arguello, his Argentine opponent that day, exonerated. Quite how he kept his sanity no one knows.

8 Serbia
Everywhere you go these days, Slobodan 'Bobo' Zivojinovic seems to be in the front row of the VIP box. It may have something to do with him being the president of the Serbian Tennis Federation and the fact that his country has the No 1 ranked player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour (Jelena Jankovic) and the French Open champion (Ana Ivanovic) on the women's side and the No 3 ranked player and Australian Open champion (Novak Djokovic) and the Masters doubles champion (Nenad Zimonjic) on the men's side, plus assorted other notable performers. Not bad at all.

9 Spain
Similarly, the Spaniards can never have had it so good. Rafael Nadal (see above) is a charismatic, colourful multi-grand-slam champion and world's best player, Verdasco (see above) has a dashing girlfriend and they win the Davis Cup without the world No 1 in their ranks. The tournament staged in October (which is being switched to a brand new arena, the Caja Magica, in May, 2009) is the finest outside of the grand slams. Vamos.

10 Carl Maes
The head of women's tennis at the LTA earns a 19.2 per cent bonus which, in the letter of confirmation, comes the admission that targets for top 100 players have not been met. Need one say more?

Losers