Milos Raonic, the 21 year old Canadian tennis star was ranked 156 in the ATP Tour rankings at the beginning of 2011. Coming into the year, Raonic and his coach Galo Blanco each wrote down what they believed his year-end ranking would be and sealed it in an envelope – Raonic wrote 47 and Blanco 31. Raonic finished the year at 31!

Raonic did not have the best of starts to the new season as he failed to qualify for the main draw of the Chennai Open 2011. However, the Canadian caught the attention of the tennis world by reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open. Raonic continued his impressive run by winning the SAP Open title at San Jose in February 2011 and finishing runner-up at Memphis the following week. Further, he was instrumental in re-establishing Canada in the Davis Cup. However, Raonic suffered a set back at the Wimbledon Championships where he sustained a hip injury and was out of action for six weeks. Following his return to the circuit, he picked up right from where he left off by reaching the semifinals of the Stockholm Open.

Defending Champion, Stanislas Wawrinka, will open his campaign for the new season at the Chennai Open for the third year in a row. The Swiss, currently ranked No. 17 in the ATP Tour rankings had a perfect start to the season in 2011 when he lifted his first hard court title by defeating Xavier Malisse in three sets in the Final at the SDAT stadium here in Chennai. That title triumph helped Wawrinka break back into the top 20 of the ATP rankings.

The Swiss continued his fine run by reaching the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 at Indian Wells, the semifinals at the Swiss Indoors Basel, and the 4th round at the Roland Garros. Ironically, he lost to his compatriot Roger Federer on each of those occasions. Later this year, Wawrinka joined hands with Federer helping Switzerland to a 3-2 win over Australia in the Davis Cup World Group play-off in September.

Somdev Kishore Devvarman, India’s leading singles tennis player, will kick off the new season at the Chennai Open 2012 starting 2^nd January. India’s highest ranked singles player has had a very impressive 2011 as reflected in the steady climb in his ATP ranking. Somdev broke into the top 100 again in February this year and reached a career best ranking of 62 in July before finishing the year at the rank of 84. His notable performances in 2011 include reaching the finals of the South African Tennis Open 2011, the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open (ATP Masters 1000 event) and the quarterfinals at the Atlanta Tennis Championships. Somdev proved his mettle by defeating quite a few top ranked players this year including World no.9 Janko Tipsarevic, Marcos Baghdatis, Xavier Malisse, Milos Raonic, and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez among others.

In 2010, the India No.1 won the Gold medal in the men’s singles event of the CommonWealth Games in New Delhi and the Men’s singles and doubles Gold medal at the 2010 Asian Games at Guangzhou, China. Recognizing his contribution to the Indian Tennis, the Government of India in 2011 awarded him the prestigious Arjuna Award.

Cara Black has been one of this decade's topmost exponents of the doubles game. She has w on 63 titles over her career and 9 slams in women's & mixed doubles. Amazingly she has completed the career mixed doubles Slam and is one French Open away from achieving the same in the women's doubles. Indian tennis fans would recognise the name since she has been a regular partner with Leander Paes over the last few years. Cara hails from Harare, Zimbabwe and the Black family's competence in doubles is well known as her brothers - Wayne & Byron were regulars on the men's doubles circuit through the 90's and up to mid 2000's.

She is currently defending her title in Birmingham and I caught up with her after her semi-final win, to speak to her about the match, her career, the shape the game's taken over the year's she's been part of it and of course about what it is like to play with Leander Paes. Cara graciously agreed to the interview and responded wonderfully to everything we threw at her.