Chronicle Editor
1. Serena Williams
Tennis queen Serena Williams not only dominated the women’s game in the 2000s but she has continued to lead the way on the international sporting landscape as a mother, icon, and leader.
She has collected 12 of her 23 Grand Slam titles after 2010, last winning a major title at the Australian Open in 2017, while being eight-weeks pregnant. Williams has also been runner-up in seven major finals and despite being stuck on 23 Grand Slams, the 38-year-old is proof age is just a number as she continues to try and equal Margaret Court’s all-time record.
Injury and illness have played a part of Williams’ past 10 years, although she continues to defy logic by battling back. She has finished as world No 1 in six out of the last 10 years, dropping outside of the top 10 just once during that time.
Williams, who has been coached by Patrick Mouratoglou for the past seven years, has also completed the career ‘Golden Slam’ by holding all four majors as well as Olympics singles gold.Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf and Rafael Nadal are the only other players to have done it. The irresistible Williams also completed her second ‘Serena Slam’ (winning all four Grand Slams in a row) by winning the 2015 Wimbledon title against Garbine Muguruza.
Her rivalry with older sister Venus is the stuff of legend. Serena currently leads the series 18-12, but her dominance over Maria Sharapova is arguably the most storied rivalry in women’s tennis. The American is 20-2 up with the Russian last beating her old foe way back at the back end of 2004.
Serena continues to prove her stunning resilience, fighting spirit, and winning mentality at the highest level. She has always maintained she will not quit the game until Roger Federer retires first. One thing is for sure, we are privileged to have watched Williams dominate the women’s landscape in a golden era of tennis.
2. Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton’s sixth world title in 2019, and fifth this decade, arrived 11 years after his first, forming the longest arch of world championship victories in Formula 1’s history.
It’s a telling statistic and even more so when aligned with the two teams of his career, the McLaren years (2007-12) and those at Mercedes (2013-present). Only one of his titles came in his six seasons at McLaren. The other five have been won in his seven Mercedes years.
There is no question the technical advantages he has enjoyed at Mercedes in the hybrid era of F1 have been the cornerstone of his spectacular career statistics. By comparison, he enjoyed McLarens that ranged from good (2007-08) through poor (2009) to reasonably competitive but behind the cutting edge represented by Red Bull (2010-12).
Yet even in his McLaren years he was widely hailed as ‘F1’s fastest driver’ even if there was a more split opinion on whether he was ‘the best’. Those making the case he was merely the fastest would usually cite Fernando Alonso as the most complete.
After clinching that last-gasp 2008 title (having narrowly missed out on becoming the first rookie champion in the sport’s history the year before) and being thwarted by the initially hopeless 2009 McLaren, Hamilton’s next four seasons were spent taking opportunistic advantage of the rare days Sebastian Vettel was not in dominant form in Adrian Newey’s Red Bulls.
During those four seasons (2010-13) of Red Bull domination, Hamilton won only as many races as he took in 2019 alone and it looked feasible Hamilton’s career stats never would quite match his accepted stature within the sport. The statistically dominant driver of Hamilton’s era looked set to be Vettel, a situation Hamilton at times seemed almost resigned to.
But at the end of 2012 he made an off-track move arguably more spectacular even than those he was making on-track as he left McLaren for the hitherto unsuccessful Mercedes team, where he replaced Michael Schumacher, whose comeback had fallen short of expectations.
Although Hamilton won only one race there in 2013, it was the new-for-2014 hybrid formula that was the big focus of the team and its massive investment – and has been the foundation of his blockbusting success since.
As the fastest driver in the fastest car, the sport has rather surrendered itself to him, only a couple of key mechanical problems in 2016 keeping him from a clean sweep of all the hybrid era titles.
He now comfortably leads Vettel in the all the official records of achievement and his challenges going forward look set to be coming from the new generation, as personified by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, guys 12-13 years his junior.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo
Back in 2010, Cristiano Ronaldo was a Champions League winner with a Ballon d’Or to his name and a career at Manchester United already behind him. A star at the start of the decade, he ends it as a football icon. Ronaldo has become a byword for sustained excellence. A man obsessed with maximising his talent. Both bully and big-game player. Between 2012 and 2018, Ronaldo was the top scorer in the Champions League for six consecutive seasons. His Real Madrid side won the competition in four of them, ending the long wait for La Decima before becoming the first team to retain the trophy, and then going one better by winning it for a third time in a row. Ronaldo’s heroics were a regular feature.
He scored in two of the finals. Netted in the shootout in another. The one final in which he did not score was in 2018, but his bicycle kick against Juventus in the quarter-final that season was one of the great Champions League goals. Now he is banging them in for the Italian champions instead – scoring a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid earlier this year.
Winning a league title in a third different country is something Ronaldo’s biggest admirers will highlight as a point of differential with his great rival Lionel Messi. There is another. While the Argentine was unable to add any international honours for his country, Ronaldo captained Portugal to an unexpected victory at the 2016 European Championships.
He actually went off injured early on in the final against hosts France – having to settle for impromptu coaching duties on the touchline. But his role in taking Portugal so far was huge, twice drawing level in the group stages against Hungary when defeat would have consigned his country to an early exit. He broke the deadlock in the semi-final win over Wales too.
Ronaldo has since led Portugal to Nations League success in 2019 and finishes the decade with 99 international goals to his name. He will surely become the first European to bring up his century in the spring. Now approaching 35, it seems unlikely he will add to his five Ballons d’Or in the next decade. But this one assuredly belonged to Cristiano Ronaldo.
4. Lionel Messi
On January 10, 2010, Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick for Barcelona in a 5-0 win over Tenerife. His third goal – an audacious, first-time chip over goalkeeper Sergio Aragoneses – was so good it prompted applause from the opposition fans. It was Messi’s first La Liga appearance of the decade and, looking back, it was a good indicator of what was to come.
In fact, only a few weeks ago, Messi drew a similar reaction from Atletico Madrid fans at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium. Even Diego Simeone, the Atletico manager, could not help but applaud his sensational winner. “With a great goal like that,” Simeone said afterwards, “it’s all you can do.”
This is just what Messi does to people. His brilliance transcends fandom. Even at 32, he reaches the end of the decade just as potent as he was at the start of it. Indeed, since that winner at Atletico Madrid, there has been yet another hat-trick – this time against Mallorca – which took his goal tally for the decade to a scarcely believable total of 521 in 518 appearances.
There is nobody in sport – let alone in football – who can claim to be operating so consistently at such a staggeringly high level. Earlier this month, Messi won the Ballon d’Or for the fifth time in 10 years, making him the first player in history to win it six times in total. In terms of club silverware, the decade has yielded six La Liga title wins, two Champions Leagues and more than a dozen other trophies.
There will always be those who claim he cannot be considered truly great until he wins a major international trophy, but the circumstances with Argentina have not helped him. In the last decade, they have had six different managers. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, by contrast, have only had two. The lack of stability has hurt Messi’s prospects, but his international record does not define him.
What defines him is his unrivalled genius on the pitch. Messi is not just a scorer of great goals but a provider of them too. In the last 10 years, in addition to the 521 goals he has scored himself, there have been 191 assists. Messi can do it all – and do all of it better than anyone else on the planet. It is why football fans from all over the world continue to make the pilgrimage to the Camp Nou. And it is why his achievements over the last decade will be cherished long after he is gone.
5. Floyd Mayweather
The first 40 fights of Floyd Mayweather’s infamous 50-0 winning record came prior to 2010 – he is a modern great in two separate decades.
‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ defeated Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton pre-2010 but this decade saw his ‘Money Mayweather’ alter-ego come to the fore. He was rarely liked but never beaten, dominating at the box office and inside the ring to cement his status as an all-time great.
The reason he is among the great sportspeople of this decade is because he elevated boxing onto a bigger platform through his star power. Beating Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez was just the start. He picked the precise moment to face the talented Mexican who went on to become a superstar in his own right – this was a trademark of Mayweather’s authority. He fought on his terms in negotiations and inside the ropes.
Finally ‘The Fight of the Century’ took place. Mayweather and arch-rival Manny Pacquiao had been on a collision course for years and their 2015 meeting may have come too late, but it remains a historic moment, not least for its money-spinning record-breaking. Mayweather won at a canter.
Somehow he upped the ante again by fighting UFC star Conor McGregor two years ago. It was a spectacle and an extravaganza between two loudmouth entertainers but, once again, inside the ring it was all Mayweather. He won for the 50th time without loss, breaking the legendary Rocky Marciano’s record.
Of course, he laughed all the way to the bank. Forbes estimated that, in one night, Mayweather eclipsed the combined earnings in 2017 of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and LeBron James. The dollars were part of the character, throughout this decade. Mayweather topped Forbes’ annual list of the highest-paid athletes four times in seven years (he has not been active for the past two years).
There were controversies too, though, most notably a jail sentence that was delayed so he could fit in an extra fight. Some of the language used in the build-up to his fight with McGregor courted criticism. His longevity, the dollar bills and his undefeated career are what will define Mayweather – and can you ever really rule out a 51st fight?
6. Novak Djokovic
Since 2010, Novak Djokovic has been the dominant force in men’s tennis, winning a remarkable 62 ATP tournaments. He is relentless in his pursuit of greatness. His extreme elasticity, combined with his steely determination to win at all costs makes him the ultimate competitor.
In the past 10 years Djokovic has won six Australian Open titles, five Wimbledon crowns, three US Open titles and one French Open in 2016. He holds 16 Grand Slam titles in total and at 32 he could conceivably overtake both Rafael Nadal (19) and Roger Federer (20) by the time he calls time on his career.
He became world No 1 for the first time in July 2011 and held that position in a long stretch from July 2014 until October 2016. Djokovic held top spot as recently as October 2019 and he has Pete Sampras (286 weeks) and all-time record-holder Roger Federer (310 weeks) firmly in his sights. He went 80-38 against top-five players during this decade and 10-5 against No 1-ranked players.
Djokovic, who has spoken of his desire to end his career as the statistically most successful player in history, has also won 29 Masters 1000 titles as well as four end-of-season ATP Finals crowns in London. He’s arguably the greatest hard-court player of all time, and the last 10 years has shown us exactly why, winning 45 out of those 62 titles on his favourite surface.
As well as becoming Laureus world sportsman of the year in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2019, Djokovic has also addressed the United Nations on behalf of world athletes proclaiming April 6 as the International Day of Sports for Peace and Development.
Djokovic’s face can be seen plastered all over huge billboards around his home city of Belgrade. The man is seen as a god in his homeland who has put Serbia on the map in the world of sport. Olympic gold is one of the only prestigious prizes in tennis that has escaped the Serb. He will aim to end that drought in Tokyo next year.
7. Usain Bolt
When the Olympic Games roll round every four years, the focus in this country falls on the exploits of Team GB, with the exception of a few global megastars. Front and centre of those megastars is Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who has dominated Olympic athletics like no other.
Having announced himself with golds over 100m and 200m in 2008, Bolt entered the decade fresh from world records in both disciplines at the 2009 World Championships. It’s easy to forget, but when London 2012 came around, there were doubts about whether he would dominate again. A false start in the 100m at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu cost him, and he lost in Jamaican qualifiers to Yohan Blake ahead of the London Games. Many thought the younger man would dethrone Bolt – but that was never going to happen.
The 6ft5in icon blew away the competition, claiming three golds with his casual demeanour and elements of showboating within races marking him out not just as a legendary athlete but a true entertainer – the kind that only graces a sport once in a generation.
After cleaning up with hat-tricks of gold medals at the World Championships of 2013 and 2015, Bolt then did it all again – this time with fewer doubters – at Rio 2016. What he has done for athletics cannot be underestimated – and not just because his performances have been groundbreaking.
Until this year, nine of the 30 fastest 100m times ever were recorded by Bolt, with the other 21 all by athletes with doping convictions. Christian Coleman broke into that top 30 this year and, though he has no doping convictions, he was charged by USADA for missing three doping tests – although the charge was dropped in September.
In a sport where the shadow of doping hangs over many, Bolt has stood alone as a beacon of fair play, saying when he retired: “If you go out of your way to cheat to be a better athlete… you should get life bans. I’ve proven to the world you can do it. You can be great without doping, that’s one of the things I want to preach to the younger kids.”
His 100m and 200m world records were both set in the previous decade, but the time of 36.84 he set alongside Yohan Blake, Nesta Carter and Michael Frater at London 2012’s 4x100m relay remains the fastest ever.
His medal haul for the decade is six Olympic golds, eight World Championship golds and one bronze from when he bowed out, not fully fit, at London 2017. Now that takes some beating.
8. Tom Brady
Heading into this decade, Tom Brady was already a three-time Super Bowl winner and established as one of the NFL’s finest quarterbacks and most successful players. In the 10 years since, he has gone on to become a legend of the game and arguably the greatest of all time.
Brady’s decade actually started with disappointment – a playoff first-round exit followed by a second straight Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants. How did he respond? With seven straight AFC Championship appearances, three more Vince Lombardi trophies, and another appearance in the big game, albeit a defeat.
Since 2010, he has started every single game for the Patriots minus a four-game suspension in 2016. 153 regular-season games, 120 wins. Plus a 16-6 record in the playoffs. Whether it was Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, or a receiver New England picked up off the street days before a game, Brady has brought out the best in his surrounding playmakers.
Even without weapons around him – and at times a complete lack of running game – Brady has been able to excel due to his outstanding smarts, understanding of opposing defences and insane competitiveness. Whether he could have the same success without Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick will always be questioned, but the fact is: time after time, year after year, Brady has come up big when it mattered.
The overtime drive against Kansas City last season. The crazy fourth quarter against the Jaguars in 2017. The iconic 25-point comeback – largest in Super Bowl history that earned Brady his record-setting fourth Super Bowl MVP award – to defeat the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Brady’s decade is littered with memorable, jaw-dropping moments. Statistically, he has put himself high in the record books in every major category – and he’s still doing it at 42 years old!
His 316 touchdown passes in this decade alone would put him in the top 12 of all-time for that category. He stands alone with the most seasons of at least 20 TDs in NFL history (17) – and he has achieved that feat in every season this decade.
Ultimately, when we look back on Brady’s career, this decade took it to the next level. He has the most Super Bowl wins (six) and appearances (nine). He will finish his career with the most regular-season wins and playoff wins (by a mile).
The NFL will miss Tom Brady when he finally decides to hang it up.
9. LeBron James
LeBron James’ triumphs and tribulations have defined the NBA through the last decade.
No player can match James’ 2010s resume of three NBA titles, three Finals MVP awards, three regular-season MVPs and permanent places on the All-NBA and All-Star teams. Given his status as the NBA’s most recognised figure around the world, it seems odd to recall James began the decade as a villain whose ability to bring a title to his team was routinely questioned.
James’ 2010 decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers to “take his talents to South Beach” made him a hated figure. But forming a ‘superteam’ with his superstar friends Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami emphatically answered the critics who said ‘The King’ could not lead a team to a championship.
The Heat reached four successive Finals from 2011 to 2014, winning two titles. James took home the Finals MVP award both times. After the San Antonio Spurs denied the Heat a ‘three-peat’ of titles in 2014, James returned to Cleveland with the promise of delivering a championship for his hometown team. With the help of Kyrie Irving’s clutch Game 7 shooting, he made good on his word as the Cavaliers overturned a 3-1 deficit to win the 2016 Finals. Once again, he took home the Finals MVP award.
In total, James took the Cavaliers to four straight Finals in his second stint in Cleveland. When the overmatched Cavaliers were swept by the Golden State Warriors in the 2018 Finals, it was time for a new challenge. After eight straight Eastern Conference titles (four with Miami, four with Cleveland) James headed west to join the Los Angeles Lakers.
LeBron’s first year in purple and gold was ruined by injury and a lop-sided Lakers roster. He did not reach the playoffs for the first time since the 2004-05 season. This season, benefitting from the first extended summer break of his career and with a retooled supporting cast led by Anthony Davis, the now 35-year-old James has returned in full force. He leads the league in assists, is scoring 25 points a game and is part of the MVP conversation after leading the Lakers to the Western Conference’s best record.
As 2020 approaches, there is no sign of him letting up and no reason to suspect he will not be able to bring an NBA title to LA.
10. Simone Biles
Fittingly for a woman born in the town of Spring, Simone Biles has taken the world of gymnastics to a wider audience than ever before with her jaw-dropping routines regularly making the impossible seem possible.
By the age of 22, she has 35 medals in global events, 27 of them gold.
It’s never a surprise to see a Biles routine – on the floor, the vault, the beam or uneven bars – going viral and having not even entered her teenage years when the decade began, she has dominated the years that have followed her emergence.
Biles rose through the domestic circuit and was called-up to the US Gymnastics squad in 2013, starting as she was to go on; performing never-before-seen signature moves and winning gold medals.
A trailblazer as well as a relentless winning machine, she became the first African-American to win the all-around title at the World Championship in 2013. By the age of 19 she had won more World Championship gold medals than any other gymnast in history – a tally she has now taken to 19 following five more titles in Stuttgart earlier this year.
Having only just missed out on the Olympics in 2012, Biles set about making her mark at the 2016 Summer Games. On debut, aged just 19 and in front of a global audience of millions, she claimed five medals in Rio de Janeiro including four golds. The world eagerly awaits Tokyo in 2020.
As well as her standing as one of the very best her sport has produced, Biles has crossed into the mainstream. Winner of the Laureus world sportswoman of the year twice in the last three years, she has a trail of lucrative sponsorship deals underlining her global status which was cemented with the 2019 Game Changer award from People’s Choice.
There have been dark times. Times that were revealed in her 2018 Twitter revelation that saw her join America’s #MeToo movement. She was one of many USA Gymnastics athletes to allege she had been sexually assaulted by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. Nassar was later sentenced to between 40 and 175 years in prison, while Biles and her fellow survivors were awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
Biles’ story and sport may have gone under the radar in the past, but it is a testament to the times in which we now live that both have been told and her excellence celebrated. – Skysports.com
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