Pizzas galore!

1 Alex Bogdanovic
Harsh, I know, to have Boggo first on the list but one of the enduring memories of 2008 will be the British No 2's inability to win either of the singles rubbers in the Davis Cup tie against Austria at Wimbledon in September which would have earned Britain a place in the world group. Surely, he will not be invited to play for his country again. The hope is that he can turn his career around in 2009.

2 Etienne De Villiers
It all began to fall apart for the president and chairman of the ATP Tour when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal held a joint press conference to call for Monte Carlo and Hamburg to retain their status as Masters Series events, when they had been pencilled in for relegation in status. From then on, he was fighting a losing battle with many of the tennis constituents and, after a protracted and expensive legal battle with Hamburg (which the ATP won), the former Disney executive decided to stand down from his twin posts at the end of the year. Having said that, his earnings for 2008 were reported to be in the region of $1 million, so perhaps he should be in the winners' enclosure as well.

3 Hamburg
See above. A tournament high on tradition but down on its luck. The German city, though appealing the ATP's victory, has chosen to stage a tournament in July next year but it will be at the secondary 500 point category, a level below the 1000 events, which are the newly rebranded Masters Series. There will be €1.2 million in prize money, down from €2.27m this year. But a lot of the gloss has gone from both the tournament and German tennis, once such a powerhouse of the sport.

4 Maria Sharapova
Justine Henin chose to retire in May allowing Sharapova to be bumped up to the No 1 ranking, but this is a year she is more likely to want to forget. A shoulder injury badly impaired the Russian's progress throughout, to the extent that she was beaten in the fourth round of the French Open, the second round of Wimbledon, has not played since August and finished the year ranked No 9. Latest reports says she is willing and eager to return in 2009.

5 Artois
After a 30-year association that re-defined the art of sport and sponsorship, the brewing company decided to part company with the Queen's Club tournament this summer and its was not only journalists with thirsts to quench who were saddened. Its legacy will be hard to follow, as Aegon will discover. The people there knew how to run a tournament, knew what made it tick, knew how to treat people and the players loved it.

6 David Nalbandian
What a comeuppance for the Argentine who reached the 2002 Wimbledon final, who said he did not want to play in the Masters Cup in Shanghai even if he qualified for it because he wanted to concentrate on the Davis Cup Final. He was involved in a fractious debate with his federation about where it should be staged and on what surface, he skulked around after losing the doubles and generally lived up to his reputation as the most boorish player in the game's higher echelons. And Argentina lost.

7 US Open schedulers
What a hash they made of what is supposed to be Super Saturday at this year's US Open. Faced with an appalling weather forecast which everyone else got spot on apart from their own meteorologists, they hedged their bets and played the two mens' semi finals simultaneously on different courts. Andy Murray was forced to play his match against Rafael Nadal across two days while Roger Federer was done and dusted in one. It was no wonder the final was a touch one-sided.

8 American newspapers
Across the nation, its sports editors have decided that tennis is a sport not worth covering any more, despite its popularity across all age groups soaring and the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final being splashed across the front page of Sports Illustrated, which doesn't happen to tennis very often. The Williams sisters are the reigning Wimbledon and US Open champions, unless it escaped their attention.

9 GB Davis Cup team
Played two, lost two. Not an edifying record, not helped by Andy Murray's decision to give Argentina a miss in February (which didn't do for brotherly bonding) and Alex Bogdanovic (see above). Murray more than made up for his decision later in the year by playing two superb matches against Austria but it was to no avail as he should have been picked for the doubles and when he wasn't, the game was up.

10 Paul Hutchins
The head of men's tennis at the LTA who was removed from the job just before the bonuses for 2008 were announced (see Carl Maes above).