I can’t imagine the experience of returning to a professional sport after not participating in it for a year.  A year in the life of an athlete is like a decade to most people, a huge chunk of time to advance one's career and cash in.  When it happens to an elite athlete, even the fans feel robbed; it’s one less year to see your favorite player in action.  It doesn't matter if you're on the mend (Serena Williams), in jail (Plaxico Burress) or having copious amounts of sex with loose women (Tiger Woods).  Twelve months with no semblance of true athletic competition takes a significant physical and emotional toll.

The quick and jarring transition from clay to grass, and from Roland Garros to Wimbledon, almost tests my limits as a tennis fan. It's as if I have a reserve of sports spectating that eventually runs dry. And it takes a lot to make it through a Grand Slam. The tournament opens with 5,273 entrants and there are matches all day on every court, and I have enough trouble absorbing as many scores and results as possible. Then the field whittles itself down, and the matches become more attractive, and I have to remind myself not to check scores so I can watch those matches unfold. The men's semifinal day at the French this year was an excruciating exercise of self-restraint, waiting until the afternoon, long after the final Federer ace, to see the men's top four battle.

After winning Paris for the sixth time, Rafael Nadal celebrated by hopping on a plane to London and practicing on grass. He and the rest of the players have a whopping two weeks to prepare for Wimbledon—two weeks to hone the grass game, acclimate the muscles to different movements and positions, adjust their strategic perspectives. For a tournament generally billed as the sport's most prestigious, "The Championships" (official name and permanent reminder of self-seriousness, like this unintentionally self-mocking New York Times commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gInOA9LmdiE) doesn't seem to want the players to take it too seriously. No "grass season" to pick form players, no time to build anticipation—yet this is also the tournament that draws more casual fans than any other. Go figure.

So, whether we like it or not (who are we kidding—we love it), we've got some Wimbledon stuff to review. Here are some odds and ends about the first week.

Maria Sharapova is late in a tight third set in Miami, and she has just twisted her ankle. She tests it on the court for a moment, then walks to the chair umpire and requests treatment from the trainer. The crowd boos, first murmured catcalls, then a crescendo of disapproval. Maria has reached double-digit double faults in the match. Errors are coming in droves. The tournament organizers replay the incident on the big screen--Sharapova did a split-step after her serve, then twisted her ankle, in a nasty way, coming down from her hop. The crowd releases a shamed "Ohhhhh..." as tears stream down the statuesque Russian's face. It's the quarterfinals, and Miami is a WTA Premier event (one step under the Slams), so there are points to be had, even in a loss, and Sharapova has none to defend. Her opponent, Alexandra Dulgheru, a taut, pint-sized Romanian whose game must be an updated version of Amanda Coetzer's, will continue scrapping away from the baseline as Sharapova self-destructs. Maria is risking further injury, or a deflating end to a spirited (if sloppy) battle, by returning to the court. But after bouncing around momentarily to test the tape job, she returns, storming to the baseline with a stern gait.

What the hell is she doing?

Don't feel too bad for Roger Federer. Sure, he's lost three times in a row, this year, to Novak Djokovic. There’s no shame in that (even though his 6-2 collapse in the semis of Indian Wells was more his own fault than Novak’s), since the brusque Serbian has, in the past six months, progressed from thorn-in-the-side to legitimate contender to number one. Besides, the guy came back from a set down to beat Rafael Nadal in the final. (I doubt the tennis cognoscenti will start crowning him as "the real number one," as they have done with Kim Clijsters on the women's side.) Federer is still the Maestro, the Magician, the Man with the Golden Racquet.

At the same time, at twenty-nine years old, Federer isn’t exactly an up-and-comer. He is not defending a Grand Slam title for the first time (his first win was eight years ago) or lapping the fields at the Masters events. He will probably enter the French Open as the third favorite, and may even be stuck slapping backhands above his shoulders a round early, assuming he is still ranked third at the time. He may draw Nadal in the semifinals (if he happens to make it that far, no longer a foregone outcome).

Her forehand has little to no racquet head speed. Her backhand is a strange shoveling motion, where she looks like she's heaving the ball over the net. You just know that forehand is coming cross-court. Trips to the net--no thank you. The serve, though unattackable, does not impress. Is this really the world's number one player?

Could the Australian Open really be just days away? It seems like last weekend that I was cracking open a beer at two in the morning, awash in the glow of Melbourne’s cerulean courts.  Only the smallest sliver of down time in our sport--otherwise known as the “offseason”--allows fans an opportunity to reflect upon the past year’s events, and as I reflect upon the season, I realize how much of a blur it can be.  The December-through-early-January stretch remains the only period for a raw, focused anticipation to build.  After the Happy Slam, the players rush through a mishmash of Masters events, team competitions, exhibitions, fast hard courts, slow hard courts, clay courts, injuries, illnesses, withdrawals, victories, losses, and Wimbledon is even tucked in there somewhere.  But the length and pacing of the season is another post for another day.  For now, let’s take a look, in no particular order, at the ten most notable developments of the 2010 season.

Could the Australian Open really be just days away? It seems like last weekend that I was cracking open a beer at two in the morning, awash in the glow of Melbourne’s cerulean courts.  Only the smallest sliver of down time in our sport--otherwise known as the “offseason”--allows fans an opportunity to reflect upon the past year’s events, and as I reflect upon the season, I realize how much of a blur it can be.  The December-through-early-January stretch remains the only period for a raw, focused anticipation to build.  After the Happy Slam, the players rush through a mishmash of Masters events, team competitions, exhibitions, fast hard courts, slow hard courts, clay courts, injuries, illnesses, withdrawals, victories, losses, and Wimbledon is even tucked in there somewhere.  But the length and pacing of the season is another post for another day.  For now, let’s take a look, in no particular order, at the ten most notable developments of the 2010 season.

If you had never seen Gael Monfils play before his quarterfinal against Andy Murray in the Paris Indoors, it would have taken you all of two points to understand his modus operandi. On the first point, Murray slid a serve out wide to Gael's forehand. He chipped the return and leaned toward his backhand, while Murray curved the ball back toward Gael's forehand. Monfils dove to reach the ball, sprawled horizontally over the court while Murray coaxed the ball into the open court. Monfils may be the only player who lays out Boris Becker-style on the baseline, but why should he do in two steps what he can do in one leap? On the second point, the players exchanged deep baseline shots, Monfils scrambling on defense until he regained control and approached a mid-court floater. Rather than place a ball deep in the corner, Monfils flung himself into a forehand that landed outside the scope of the televised screen.

Though my charge with this organization is to cover tennis, I must disclose that I am also an intense football fan. Disparate in terms of objective, strategy and execution, I have trouble comparing the two sports, or explaining why I love both so much. Regardless, on November 28, I experienced the best of both worlds: a Federer-Nadal final of the World Tour Finals, and my first ever attendance of a professional game, when the San Diego Chargers handed the Indianapolis Colts the worst home loss of the Peyton Manning era. (Yes, I did leave with ten minutes left. And yes...I did boo. I'm sorry, Peyton.) The seasons of these sports briefly overlap, as the US Open ends around the time the NFL season begins, and I enter a concentrated two-month fanboy frenzy. After the 28th, my attention turned fully to football, and as much as I love tennis, I sometimes have to remind myself why. What is so fascinating about two people slapping a ball back and forth in a rectangle?