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What do we do now that the season is over and tennis is in its all-too-brief December recess? Relive the best matches of the year, of course. Over the next two weeks, I’ll count down my 10 favorite contests, accompanied by video highlights, of 2015.

No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town—Kyrgios d. Federer, Madrid
No. 9: New York Knockdown—Azarenka d. Kerber, U.S. Open
No. 8: Cup Runneth Over, and Over, and Over—Mayer d. Souza, Davis Cup
No. 7: Stan Mans Up—Wawrinka d. Djokovic, Roland Garros
No. 6: Simona Finds the Power—Halep d. Azarenka, U.S. Open
No. 5: Sending the Open Into Orbit—Fognini d. Nadal, U.S. Open
No. 4: Richard the...Lion-Hearted?—Gasquet d. Wawrinka, Wimbledon
No. 3: The Serena & Simona Show—Williams d. Halep, Miami
*No. 2: Vincanity—Vinci d. Williams, U.S. Open

No. 1: Fierce and Fiercer—Williams d. Azarenka, Wimbledon<em>*</em>

For me, Nick Kyrgios’ 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (12) win over Roger Federer in Madrid is one of those, “Did that really happen this season?” type events. Not only did the match occur eight months ago, it could have been played in another lifetime as far as the winner was concerned.

Here we see Kyrgios in those (relatively) innocent days before he shot his mouth off, and shot himself and his reputation in the foot, against Stan Wawrinka at the Rogers Cup in August. Not that the 20-year-old Aussie didn’t do his best to spoil his own party in Madrid as well, with a multi-game meltdown aimed at chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani. But instead of driving his Swiss opponent out of the building, as he did to Wawrinka in Montreal, Kyrgios instead inspired one of the year’s best quotes from Federer:

“We need a clown for this circus.”

That circus—both because of, and in spite of, Kyrgios’ presence—really was one of the most entertaining afternoons of the 2015 season. Below is a look at the highs and lows as preserved in the video at the top of the post.

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Top 10 Matches of 2015, No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town

Top 10 Matches of 2015, No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town

—“Last night it was a bit tough to get some sleep knowing that I was going out there,” Kyrgios said after beating Federer. Yet at the beginning of this clip, Kyrgios shows no sign of being intimidated by the moment or the opponent. He hops up and sticks his finger out to indicate that a Federer backhand is wide, and lets out an aggressive “Come on!” after making a backhand pass. The most important intangible in tennis is self-belief. More than anything else, you want to know: Can a young player treat every opponent the same way, and play with the same brazen, possibly illogical confidence against the best of them?

Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, to take two recent examples, could both do it as teenagers. Even as a kid, Nadal was especially good at acting as if he had no idea who was on the other side of the court. Kyrgios does the same thing, in his own way. He says that Federer is his idol, but he plays this match as if he’s unaware that a player of Federer’s stature is across the net from him. From a competitive standpoint, this is the upside of the Kyrgios act, and a big reason why, at 20, he already has wins over Nadal and Federer.

—Down 4-5 in the first set but up 0-30 on Kyrgios’s serve, Federer hits a backhand drop shot and follows it to the net for a backhand volley winner. He goes on to break Kyrgios’ serve and win the set. Federer once said he didn’t like to use drop shots, but to my recollection, he has tried them throughout his career. I can even remember being frustrated, in the days before Federer became THE Federer, watching him try, and often miss, drop shots at precisely the wrong times. Here he tries one at the right time, when he’s ahead in a game, and standing inside the baseline. The quickness he shows in following the ball forward is remarkable. Federer is 14 years older than Kyrgios, but you wouldn’t know it from watching them move around the court.

—Then, in the first-set tiebreaker, we see the inevitable downside of the Kyrgios act, when he stops the match cold to argue with Lahyani. Around this time, there was a lot of talk about whether Kyrgios was “good for the game” or not; the Wawrinka incident gave us a temporary answer, but the question will surely come up again. To me, Kyrgios is entertaining during points, not between them. His game is good for tennis; his act isn't.

By the end of the year, John McEnroe was talking about ways that he could help Kyrgios, and you can see the connection between those two loose cannons in this clip. McEnroe, in an act of competitive displacement, typically aimed his frustration at the chair umpire; his opponent often seemed to be an afterthought. For a long stretch in this match, Kyrgios appears to be more concerned with forcing Lahyani to admit that he misinterpreted something he said than he is in playing points against Federer.

Despite their best efforts at self-distraction, McEnroe and Kyrgios share an ability to play well when they’re angry. After ranting away the first-set tiebreaker, Kyrgios bounces back to win the second set. And while it’s (rightly) forgotten now, Kyrgios' anger-fueled play against Wawrinka in Montreal was as brilliant as it was off-putting.

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Top 10 Matches of 2015, No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town

Top 10 Matches of 2015, No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town

—When Kyrgios finally gets back to the business at hand, he and Federer put on a display of muscular clay-court tennis. The fact that neither of them is a dirt-baller helps; rather than simply rallying, they’re trying to create an advantage with each shot. The two combine for 38 aces in the Madrid altitude.

“He can rely on his serve so much,” Federer said of Kyrgios afterward. “It keeps him in the match no matter how he plays from the baseline. All he needs to do is string together a few good shots, a few good points together when it really matters.”

Does having such a reliable bailout weapon also hurt Kyrgios in a way, by making life a little too easy? Would he lose his concentration so often if he couldn’t make everything right with one swing of the racquet?

—That’s a question for another day. In this match, the Kyrgios serve was a life-saver. He won 79 percent of his first-serve points, closed out the second set with a service winner, and didn’t face a break point in the third. Despite squandering five match points in the 14-12 third-set tiebreaker, Kyrgios could still rely on his big delivery to keep him in the lead.

If you win by the serve, though, you can also lose by it. In the next round, Kyrgios was out-aced, and beaten, by John Isner.

—“He likes the big stage,” Federer said of Kyrgios when this circus was over, putting a more euphemistic spin on his earlier “clown” comment. Can Kyrgios ever give us the game without the act? McEnroe never managed it for long; the tirades came with the talent. Kyrgios has said recently that he feels like he “matured a lot” in 2015, but it doesn’t sound as if he’s making any promises for next year.

“I’ll do everything I can, so I think for my game it’s good,” Kyrgios said last week of his behavior going forward. “It brings energy and excitement, and I think that’s very important.”

I look forward, with trepidation and perhaps against my better judgment, to Kyrgios bringing his circus back to town in 2016.