Top sports events of the decade.

The first decade of the twenty first century has been rather exiting in many ways than one can imagine and the field of sports is no exception in my opinion and the following events that i have pointed out have caught my attention.

2001:-This was the year when an Australian tennis player named Lleyton Hewitt won his first grand slam,the U.S. open championship and the start of the Williams sister's era on the women's side.Coming to cricket,India and Australia clashed with each other in a 3 match test series in India that went onto to become very famous and was talked about for years.This particular year belonged to that amazing 281 by V.V.S.Laxman at kolkata and the 300 plus partnership that he shared with Rahul Dravid and of course Harbhajan Singh's rise.

2002:-This was the year of the FIFA world cup held in korea and Japan and in Asia for the first time.The tournament marked the fifth world cup title for the South American giants,Brazil.In Cricket,India managed to beat England at Lord's in the Natwest series final chasing a score of 326 thanks to some great contributions by Mohd. Kaif,Yuvraj Singh and the captain at the time Sourav Ganguly.Who can forget Ganguly and his shirt on the balcony at the end of the match.

2003:-This was the year of the world cup of cricket-the 50 over version and once again the Australians walk away with the trophy by breaking the hearts of millions of Indian fans,beating India in the final very convincingly .This was their third world cup title and the first under Ricky Ponting.This year also marked the first of many wimbledon titles of a Swiss tennis player named Roger Federer.This year would be the starting point of the Federer era in men's singles tennis.

2004:-I feel this year belonged to the then Greek football team.Nobody expected the Greek side to walk away with the Euro championship 2004 held in Portugal and they managed to do so by beating the hosts twice in the tournament.This year was also famous for Valentino Rossi's much talked about shift from Honda to Yamaha in Moto GP.They managed to build quite a partnership for six more years from that point.

2005:-This was perhaps one of the most controversial years in Indian cricket history-the Chappell era.It all started with the end of the term of John Wright as the Indian coach and in came Greg Chappell.Things then started to change dramatically and the then captain Sourav Ganguly was first stripped of his captaincy and then dropped from the team.In the tennis arena Roger Federer was continuing his dominance over the game but the French open of the year saw a new champion named Rafael Nadal who would go onto achieve a lot success in the rest of the decade.

2006:-The FIFA world cup returned once again and this time it was the Azzuris[The Italians] who claimed the trophy and for the fouth time but the tournament saw a very sad ending to it when the legendary Zenedine Zidane who was playing his last match and the final of the world cup was sent off due to head butting the Italian defender Marco Mazerratti because of provocation by the latter.The year also marked the return of Sourav Ganguly into the Indian side after a very poor performance by the Indians in South Africa.

2007:-This one according to me should go down as one of the most famous years in Indian cricket history because India were knocked out of the 50 over world cup held in the West indies for the first time in the group stage itself after losing to Bangladesh.This meant the resignation of Greg Chappell as Indian Coach after a lot of outburst by the very cricket crazy general public of India.This was the very year that India managed to win the three match test series against England in England under Rahul Dravid thanks to some brilliant performances by the greatest of them all Sachin Tendulkar and vital contributions by Sourav Ganguly and Zaheer Khan.But perhaps the most famous event of the year was India winning the inaugural version of the Twenty20 world cup in South Africa under M.S.Dhoni.To me Yuvraj Singh hitting six sixes in a Stuart Broad over was the highlight of the year.

2008:-This was the year that India toured Australia which would become very controversial because of the Harbhajan-Symonds spat and ofcourse the infamous Sydney test.The Indian side would later go onto win the one day series in Australia thanks to the great Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma.The year ended with the Indians winning against the Aussies at home in a four match test series that would see the retirements of Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble-long time servants of Indian cricket and players of the highest class who have contributed a lot to Indian cricket.This year also saw the inaugural version of the IPL.

2009:-I personally believe that Australia's decline in cricket started in 2007 when lot of the veterans retired but the year 2009 sealed the deal when Australia lost the Ashes in England once again.This was the year that Roger Federer won his first French open title and the Indian cricket team whitewashed the Newzealanders on their turf.This was the year when the 'Indian Premiere league' was held in South Africa.

2010:-This year and the two decades that preceded it belong to one man in my opinion and that man,the greatest batsman to ever grace the cricketing field and called God by many,Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.Kudos to him for scoring a one day double hundred against South Africa.The year also had some exciting cricket matches and India have beaten Australia,New Zealand and drew Sri Lanka and who can forget the number one rank in the world in test matches.The year also saw Spain lifting their first ever FIFA world cup and the Spanish bull Rafa Nadal winning the French open,the Wimbledon and the U.S.open this year.

Although my title to this post was top sports events i am sure that most of you would have noticed that i am biased towards cricket and that is true.I am an Indian after all right?In celebration of the previous one,happy new year everybody.