The Last Word returns, and each weekday, starting on Monday, December 5, we'll give you our year-end thoughts about tennis' best players—this time focusing on the ATP and WTA Top 10. We'll alternate tours each day; here's who we've looked at so far.
Best of 2011
Almagro set himself up to crack the Top 10 with a torrid early-season stretch and ended up winning three of five finals on the year. He won back-to-back titles at Costa Do Sauipe and Buenos Aires (defeating Alexandr Dolgopolov and Juan Ignacio Chela for the titles, respectively) and reached the final at his next event, Acapulco (losing to Ferrer).
Worst of 2011
Immediately after winning his third title of the year in Nice, Almagro lost a heartbreaker to Lukasz Kubot in the first round of Roland Garros, 6-4 in the fifth.
Year in Review
Almagro lost to Novak Djokovic in the round-of-16 at the Australian Open; it was his earliest loss of the year until he stumbled in the round-of-32 at Indian Wells. Almagro didn’t do as well as he hoped in the clay-court Masters events, and he struggled at two of the majors (French Open and the U.S. Open, where he lost in the first round to No. 81 Julien Benneteau). He tailed off toward the end of the year, losing first-round matches at three of his last four tournaments, two of them Masters-level.
See For Yourself
Almagro has one of the most lethal and technically sound one-handed backhands, and it tells you something about his power and technique that he still runs around it to hit his forehand. See both of those excellent shots here: