Continuing our Season In Review Series, ATPWorldTour.com revisits the best ATP World Tour matches of 2015. In today’s countdown we feature Nos. 5-3:

Milos Raonic d. Rafael Nadal 4-6, 7-6(10), 7-5/QF/Indian Wells

Asked what makes Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal stand out from the rest of the pack, Milos Raonic asserted, “You have a complete range of emotions that everybody and anybody can face. It’s just how you deal with them that really makes a difference, that separates the three guys that are at the top from everybody else.”

The Canadian handled his emotions quite well during his quarter-final match-up with Nadal at the BNP Paribas Open, where he saved three match points to claim his first win over the Spaniard, 4-6, 7-6(10), 7-5.

“At the moments when I was playing those match points, it didn’t really feel like match points,” said Raonic. “It was just like another point that I was trying to get through. [I was] just sort of going through the paces at that moment of what do I need to do now, not really signifying it as a match point.”

In reaching his fifth ATP World Tour Masters 1000 semi-final, Raonic ended Nadal’s perfect record against Canadians.

The World No. 6 was broken for the first time in the tournament as the three-time champion Nadal took a 2-1 lead in the opening set, which he went on to win in 36 minutes. Raonic saved three match points in the second-set tie-break to force a third set.

Raonic finally earned a crucial break in the third set to go up 6-5 and a chance to serve out the match. He fired 19 aces and saved six of his seven break points faced in the two-hour, 58-minute victory.

“I feel all sorts of good,” said Raonic. “There was a lot of up and down through that match, and all I could ask of myself was just keep competing and hope to find a way. I got fortunate a few times and it worked out.”

“I think I did well,” said Nadal. “I enjoyed the fact that I felt good on court again. I felt competitive. I felt strong, with the right energy. I lost that match thinking much more positively than negatively.”

Gael Monfils d. Alexandr Dolgopolov 7-6(5), 7-6(6)/R32/Monte-Carlo

It looked as if Alexandr Dolgopolov was on his way to run-of-the-mill victory. After all, the 26-year-old Ukrainian had broken Gael Monfils to take a 5-4 lead in the opening-set of their Round of 32 match at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters.

But Monfils had a few tricks up his sleeve. The 28-year-old Frenchman quickly returned the favor with a break of his own, and managed to steal the stanza in a tense tie-break. A tie-break would be needed to decide the second set, too, after both players lost their service games twice, Monfils booking his place in the third round against Roger Federer with a one-hour, 51-minute 7-6(5) 7-6(6) nail-biter.

There was no lack of flair between these gifted shotmakers, a must-see match that featured highlight after highlight. 

Serving at 7-6(5), 1-2, Monfils completely faked out his opponent (and the crowd) when, following a forehand into the net, he pulled off a half-hearted backhand volley. But here’s where he fooled us: he turned his back, shaking his head as if to concede the point. Dolgopolov, picking up on the Frenchman’s indifference, promptly chased down the volley and smacked what he surely believed was an uncontested forehand winner. But Monfils came to life, spun around and swatted a crosscourt forehand pass of his own, a sly grin and a wink at his coach telling us that he was in control all along.

“He was very creative,” said Monfils, who improved to 3-0 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head. “He does things differently. Sometimes he makes two or three mistakes, so you think you’re all right. Suddenly, he plays three wonderful returns. That’s annoying. But I tried to play each point being positive. It was good tennis.”

Fabio Fognini d. Federico Delbonis 6-4, 6-7(10), 7-6(9)/QF/Rio

It was the kind of match that needed to be seen to be believed; a surreal quarter-final that had a little something for everybody. Fabio Fognini would need nine match points to defeat Argentine baseliner Federico Delbonis 6-4, 6-7(10), 7-6(9) in a three-hour, 12-minute Friday night thriller at the Rio Open.

In a match that featured more than its fair share of momentum shifts and mood swings, the Italian trailed 1-5 in the second set before forcing a tie-break, where he would squander his first of three match points. Somehow, Delbonis managed to force a third set. The real drama came in the final-set tie-break, where Fognini failed to capitalise on five more match points. But after three hours and 12 minutes, he finally closed out the emotionally- and physically-draining match.

“It was really difficult, really tough,” said Fognini. “It was long. Before I closed the match, I had eight match points. But I’m really happy.”

Andy Murray, Kei Nishikori, Grigor Dimitrov and Benoit Paire lead the way in part two of the 2015 Hot Shots Roundup, featuring the most spectacular points from ATP World Tour events from across the globe.

Which was your favourite shot of the year? Let us know in the comment section below!

Watch Part 1 here.

Gustavo Kuerten, former No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, celebrated the 15^th anniversary of his Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian triumphed in Lisbon over Andre Agassi and kicked off a 43-week run at the top of the rankings.

To mark the occasion, Guga traveled to Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí, the traditional site of the Rio Carnival, and invited 200 underprivileged children to join him for mini-tennis and some cake. Each child received a medal as a gift for taking part in the activity.

The Brazilian Tennis Federation announced that, in honour of Kuerten’s title, every December 3^rd will now be “National Tennis Day” in Brazil. In addition to winning the year-end championships in 2000 and posting a 358-195 tour-level record, Kuerten also captured three Grand Slam titles, all of them at Roland Garros.

John McEnroe returned to the Royal Albert Hall in sensational style on Thursday with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over long-time rival Mats Wilander. 

It was McEnroe’s first chance to sample ‘Aegon Crowd Call’, the human line-calling system which sees spectators holding up cards which read ‘in’ or ‘out’. McEnroe is a big fan. 

‘This was an opportunity for all these fans in here to right all the wrongs from my career,’ he said. ‘I just love it, why couldn’t this have happened sooner? I’d have won a lot more titles.’

So with a little help from a sympathetic crowd, McEnroe got the better of his old rival Wilander, showing frequent glimpses of his trademark guile and court-craft to battle past the wily Swede in two straights sets. 

Also on Thursday, Fernando Gonzalez cruised into the final of the Champions Tennis for a second consecutive year after brushing off the challenge of Royal Albert Hall debutante Sebastien Grosjean 7-5, 6-4. Afterwards, Grosjean was forced to withdraw from the rest of the singles because of injury. He will be replaced by Magnus Larsson. 

Before he competes in Sunday’s final, Gonzalez will turn his attention to a first qualifying match for Saturday’s Tie Break Tens event, the new, quick-fire format which is set to launch at the Royal Albert Hall on the night of Saturday 5th December as part of Champions Tennis. Gonzalez will face Younes El Aynaoui, while James Blake will take on Xavier Malisse, with the two winners to face off for the final place in the Tie Break Tens field alongside Andy Murray, John McEnroe, David Ferrer, Kyle Edmund and Tim Henman. 

Jim Westhall Sr., who headed the Volvo International in its days in New Hampshire, Vermont and ultimately Connecticut, passed away on Nov. 26th in North Conway, N.H., the very town that played host to the tournament during its most roseate years. He was 88.

A graduate of Duke University, Westhill began his career in radio and television, including doing play-by-play for Dartmouth football. He was an assistant to New Hampshire Congressman Louis C. Wyman, and later worked for a communications law firm and a national airline. As owner/tournament director, Westhall took a fledgling event that Bud Collins dubbed “Wimbledon of the Woods” and Rod Laver called “a little old country hit” and transformed it into a showcase for some of the world’s top players. Among the titlists during Westhall’s run were Laver, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker.

The Volvo International was originally played on the outdoor clay courts of Bretton Woods (1973-74) and North Conway (1975-84) in New Hampshire, before moving to the hard courts of Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont (1985-89).

“He had no experience in tennis, but he clearly had a mind for promotion,” said longtime Haverford College men’s coach Sean Sloane, who served as Westhall’s head referee and adviser from the very start. “He was quite an innovator. I think a lot of other tournaments have copied stuff that he started.”

“Jim Westhall was a showman,” said Bill Norris, a longtime trainer with the ATP World Tour. “He had great ideas. He really made his mark in tennis in the early ‘70s. There was really no template for being a tournament director back in those days. It was the infancy of the professional game.”

In 1990, Westhall was instrumental in moving the event, later known as the Pilot Pen International, to New Haven, Conn., making it the state’s first major tennis tournament. In its first two years there, the US Open tune-up attracted 265,000 spectators.

Westhall led a push for expansion of the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale (today the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center), which upon completion was the second largest tennis stadium in the world (15,000 capacity).

“When he moved to Connecticut, that was huge,” said Sloane. “He wanted to stay in upper New England, but he also wanted the tournament to continue to grow. He knew the risk he was taking by going to New Haven.”

“North Conway was the most special place — at the bottom of Mount Cranmore,” remembered Norris. “He used to transport players by helicopter from the tournament hotel because traffic was so heavy. It really had a circus- or county-fair-type feeling. All these great names were playing — Connors, Guillermo Vilas.”

In was at the Volvo International in 1979 that Connors had to be shuttled from North Conway via helicopter to catch a flight to Los Angeles, arriving with only hours to spare before his wife, Patti, gave birth to their son, Brett.

Westhall’s promotional stunts were legendary. He held live draws on the top of Mount Washington, on a boat at sea, with veteran official Frank Hammond in a dive tank, and with help from a skydiver. During his tenure in New Haven, the event was the first to introduce music during changeovers. In 1995, he famously settled a bet with Agassi. The wager? His hair. Westhall said that if Agassi won the title he would allow the future Hall of Famer to cut his famously long locks on court.

According to the New Haven Register, Agassi called it “the thickest, nappiest head of hair I’ve ever seen.”

“I never thought it would happen to me,” said Westhall, who in 2004 authored Nonsense at the Net: A Rags to Riches to Rags Story (Or…How a Little Backwoods Tennis Tournament Made it to the Big Leagues). “But here we are. I’ll do anything to get this tournament to be the best in the world.”

In April 1997, he sold the tournament to a partnership group headed by Butch Buchholz.

He is survived by his wife, Vera, their three children, James, Jr., Suzanne and Lisa, two grandchildren and a great grandson.