In Wimbledon's murky gloom on a Sunday in July, men's tennis hailed Spanish king Rafael Nadal, the muscleman from Mallorca who ended Roger Federer's five-year reign as the ruler of the All England Club.
The five-set thriller, already regarded as the greatest Grand Slam final of all time, proved to be one of many thrilling high points in a year to remember on the ATP Tour.
By the time 2008 came to a close, the 22-year-old Nadal, already with a fourth French Open safely tucked away, had claimed a 31st career title by taking Olympic gold and had also deposed Federer as world number one.
Such was the influence of Nadal that he even helped Spain win the Davis Cup despite being absent from the final against Argentina because of a recurrence of his worrying knee injury.
Nadal won eight titles in 2008 although, like his great rival Federer, he suffered a slow start, losing to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the Australian Open semi-finals and waiting until Monte Carlo in April to break his duck for the year.
He then virtually swept through the claycourt season, adding Barcelona, Hamburg and another Roland Garros (where he has never lost) to his CV before claiming his first grasscourt tournament at Queen's.
That was just the appetizer to his stunning victory in the Wimbledon final, the first by a Spanish man to triumph in south-west London in over 40 years.
He also became only the third man to capture the French Open and Wimbledon titles in the same year as Federer's 65-match, six-year winning streak on grass came to a shuddering halt.
Both Federer and Nadal are set to remain the dominant forces in 2009 but there is a host of young pretenders waiting to pounce.
World number three Djokovic is just 10 points behind Federer in the world rankings and is almost six years younger.
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