Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in a near six-hour Australian Open final, but some say it was an overrated match. (Getty Images)

With the ATP World Tour Finals in the books, we can finally close down the 2012 season. Looking back, it was certainly a year of memorable matches, from the near six-hour epic between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final, to Victoria Azarenka’s near-upset of Serena Williams at the U.S. Open, to Andy Murray’s breakthrough at the U.S. Open. In between the drama on the biggest stages, we had some wild matches week in and week out that produced some quality tennis, even if the sport’s biggest titles weren’t on the line.

This week’s Toss features a panel of tennis writers who spent the last 10½ months watching every kind of match — good, bad and ugly — to try to answer a seemingly simple question.

Today’s Toss: Which matches stood out as the best of the year?

Courtney Nguyen: Thanks for joining this week’s discussion, everyone. As the ATP and WTA seasons have officially wrapped up — yes, there’s the Davis Cup final this weekend, but seriously, at some point we must draw a line — the offseason has finally arrived and with it an ever-so-brief respite for those of us who have spent virtually every day of the last 11 months watching tennis. So we should obviously use this break to keep talking about tennis, right?  Right.

This week I wanted to get your wise input on some of the best matches of the year. I’m not sure there’s a match that stands out as being the obvious or unanimous choice this year. We’ve had long matches, we’ve had historic matches and we’ve had memorable matches. But what exactly do we mean when we say one single match was great or even the best?

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Novak Djokovic outlasted Roger Federer in two thrilling sets to win the title at the ATP World Tour Finals. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)

LONDON — The ATP season is officially over, and as the last piece of blue and white confetti fell in the O2 Arena on Monday, Novak Djokovic was the last man standing. Djokovic consolidated his year-end No. 1 ranking with a mind-bending victory that has contortionists all over the globe picking up a racket.

Here are the final marks for the final week of the ATP season, which wrapped up at the World Tour Finals. Final, final, final. Get it? We’re finally done with ATP events.

Novak Djokovic: A-plus. The No. 1 went undefeated for the week, beating Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro, Tomas Berdych, Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to pocket $1.76 million and bookend his year with two big titles: the Australian Open in January and now the World Tour Finals. Watching Djokovic through the week, I marveled at just how far he’s come. This is a guy who exploded onto the scene in 2011 despite a reputation for being mentally and physically fragile, soft in all the wrong ways. He would check out of matches, mentally throwing in the towel when things got tough and shrugging fatalistically as if to say, “Oh, well. The tennis gods are against me and it’s just not my day.”

Maybe it’s just habit, but I still look for signs of Beta-Nole when he falls behind in matches, but I haven’t seen him around these parts in a long, long time. The guy looks physically unbreakable these days, even as he undertakes leg-snapping starts and stops, and mentally there’s absolutely no quit. He truly believes in his talent and skill — and why shouldn’t he after backing up his historic 2011 with another No. 1 season? That belief translates into laser focus on the court. So … xan he do it again in 2013?

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Novak Djokovic finished the year with a career-high 75 match victories and six titles. (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)

LONDON — It had to end this way. No. 1 Novak Djokovic vs. No. 2 Roger Federer, a back-and-forth showdown that was impossible to call until the final point, which served as the only difference in the match.

And oh what a point it was. Having stifled Federer with his acrobatic defense for more than two hours, his body literally bending to impossible lengths but never breaking, Djokovic slid wide to his backhand side and nailed a screaming winner up the line past a charging Federer to seal a 7-6 (6) 7-5 victory, win his second ATP World Tour Finals and put to rest any questions about the strength of his quietly dominant 2012 season.

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No. 1 Novak Djokovic and No. 2 Roger Federer will battle on Monday in the finale of the World Tour Finals. (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)

LONDON — The ATP’s season-ending event will come down to No. 1 Novak Djokovic and No. 2 Roger Federer in the finale of the World Tour Finals on Monday.

Djokovic outlasted Juan Martin del Potro 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in Sunday’s first semifinal, while Federer ended Andy Murray’s bid for his first title at this event with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory. As a result, Djokovic will look to cap his No. 1 season with his second year-end title (he won the Tour Finals in Shanghai in 2008), while Federer will be going for his third straight title here and seventh overall.

Monday will bring one last showdown between Djokovic and Federer, their fifth clash of the year and 29th all time. The two have split four meetings in 2012, with Djokovic taking two on clay (Rome, the French Open) and Federer capitalizing on the quick surfaces at Wimbledon and Cincinnati. Their matches have gone true to form in a rivalry that has been relatively even (Federer leads 16-12) and has turned on court speed and whoever was hotter at the time.

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Andy Murray is looking for a strong finish to his big year at the World Tour Finals. (Kerim Okten/Landov)

LONDON — Five thoughts on the ATP World Tour Finals as we await Sunday’s semifinals and Monday’s final:

1. World Tour Finals’ place in the game: Tennis.com’s Steve Tignor had a good read analyzing the importance of the ATP’s season finale. My feeling is that year-end championships — whether for the men or the women — are only as important as the players consider them. That means the value of the tournament can vary year by year, player by player.

For instance, I suspect the tournament is quite important this year for Roger Federer and Andy Murray, who are both looking to put a stamp on stellar seasons, and less so for Novak Djokovic, who has clinched the year-ending No. 1 ranking. Also noteworthy is that the event’s significance is undermined by comments from the likes of Janko Tipsarevic, who seems to have prided himself on the work he did to qualify for the tournament rather than the work he’s done at the tournament. Tipsarevic, who has been struggling with what sounds like a cold, sarcastically bragged about making it past the one-hour mark in his 6-0, 6-4 loss to Juan Martin del Potro, saying afterward that he’s playing his worst tennis here but that he’s trying (more on him below). I’m not sure that placates the fans who shelled out a lot of money to watch an 80-minute beatdown.

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Roger Federer secured his spot in the semis of the ATP Finals with a win over David Ferrer. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)

LONDON — Even without playing his best, Roger Federer advanced out of round-robin play at the ATP World Tour Finals with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory over No. 5 David Ferrer on Thursday. Federer reached the semifinals for the 10th time in 11 appearances, extended his winning streak at the year-end tournament to 12 dating to 2010, and clinched his first 70-win season since he won 92 matches in 2006.

This wasn’t Federer at his finest, especially compared to his form throughout a year in which he won Wimbledon for his first Grand Slam title since the 2010 Australian Open and reclaimed the No. 1 ranking for the first time in two years. No matter, as he still held off Ferrer to snap his 11-match winning streak. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve firmly lodged yourself into your opponent’s mind.

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There’s no denying it: Last week the tennis world was haunted. There were ankle turns, upsets and, well, Bernard Tomic. But let’s not let the bad overshadow the good. Here are some of the best moments of the last week, captured in photos.

Andy Murray, Roger Federer: As it turns out, Murray can hold a microphone and address a crowd in Roger’s presence without breaking down into a puddle of tears. Maybe he should wear a suit the next time he plays Federer in a Grand Slam final? Seems to do the trick.

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Novak Djokovic improved to 4-3 this year against Andy Murray. (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON — The slimmest of margins have decided most of this year’s matches between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. And you can add another one to the list after Wednesday’s clash at the ATP World Tour Finals.

Djokovic rallied to defeat Murray 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the second round of pool play at the eight-player, season-ending championships. The Serb improved to 2-0 and closed in on a semifinal berth, while the Scot fell to 1-1 with one match remaining in Group A.

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Roger Federer has won a record 40 matches at the ATP World Tour Finals. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

LONDON — Roger Federer may have lost the No. 1 ranking to Novak Djokovic, but the Swiss is still making history left and right. Federer routed Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 6-1 in his opener at the ATP World Tour Finals on Tuesday, giving the six-time champion a record 40 match victories in the tournament, one more than Ivan Lendl. 

Meanwhile, Federer began the week by winning the ATP’s Fan Favorite Award for the 10th consecutive year. At a time when several players have charisma and skill in spades — this is the Golden Era, after all — that’s an astonishing run that speaks to Federer’s universal appeal. We’ve seen the squealing Rafael Nadal fans and the intense and energetic Djokovic supporters. But Federer is the guy who’s won over the world.

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LONDON — At 31 years old, Federer continues to be the most resilient player in the game, the Cal Ripken Jr. of tennis. He has never retired in the middle of a match in his career and you can count on one hand the number of times he’s withdrawn from a tournament after it began. After his 6-3, 6-1 loss to Roger Federer in the first round of the ATP World Tour Finals, Janko Tipsarevic was asked whether Federer’s physical durability was due to simple good luck. Tipsarevic said it was Federer’s professionalism that ensured his durability, not luck.

“I think Roger Federer is everything but lucky,” Tipsarevic said. “People see him play this flawless tennis and saying, ‘Oh, life is so easy for Roger, he’s so talented.’ I mean he is talented, but there’s so much work behind that and so much thinking to improve — at least what I think. The fact that he was born with that magic hand is a plus.

“But I think Roger Federer is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, professionals that this sport has ever had. Throughout his career, he was always putting tennis as the No. 1 thing in his life, never doing anything to damage his professional tennis career. Because of that, and because of the professionalism that he has and the time that he devoted to this game, this is the reason why he has such high durability and was almost never injured in his career.

“This is my take on that. It has nothing to do with luck.”