Although we’re nearly four months into the 2009 schedule, the ATP Tour has just announced the awards for the 2008 season. Obviously, fans aren’t clamoring at the doors of ATP headquarters demanding to know the results – it’s just a bit odd considering how much more quickly a sport like Major League Baseball does it.As expected, Rafael Nadal was chosen as "player of the year" while Roger Federer was recognized as the “favorite player”and given the Stefan Edberg sportsmanship award.
Roger Federer earned the ATP Tour’s Stefan Edberg sportsmanship award for a record fifth consecutive year, and he was chosen the favorite player for the sixth year in a row in a poll of fans on Wednesday.
Top-ranked Rafael Nadal was chosen player of the year, and first-year pair Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia was selected doubles team of the year.
James Blake of the United States won the Arthur Ashe humanitarian of the year award for his charitable efforts, and Rainer Schuettler of Germany was chosen comeback player of the year. France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was chosen most improved, and Japan’s Kei Nishikori won newcomer of the year.
Far be it from a guy who just earned his fifth consecutive sportsmanship award to take offense, but I hope the fact the Nadal was chosen as player of the year is eating Federer up inside. Maybe then he can make the slight adjustments to his game so he can begin beating Nadal. They’re so minute that I would need to explain them on a 3-D graphic of a tennis court using Nadal and Federer as avatars, drawn to scale. We don’t have that kind of funding here at Scores Report, so let’s just say Fed needs to improve the accuracy of his ground strokes in an effort to tire Nadal out rather then vice versa. We’ll just leave it at that for now.
