Winning streaks, and losing streaks, will always be talking points in tennis. Wimbledon.com assess the infamous ones being broken, and extended, so far in 2015

It's at times like this, as several long losing streaks are broken, while another just keeps on going, that you can't help but misquote Vitas Gerulaitis. 

For all his achievements on the court - he won an Australian Open title, played in the finals of Roland Garros and the US Open, and also appeared in two Wimbledon semi-finals - and despite the circumstances of his death (he was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning), Gerulaitis is best remembered for the off-court remark he made after ending his losing run against Jimmy Connors: "Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row."

In truth, Gerulaitis was wrong about that - he did indeed end his unfortunate run against Connors at 16 successive defeats, but let's not forget how he did lose 17 consecutive matches against Bjorn Borg. That remains the longest losing streak against one opponent in modern men's tennis, through it's not the outright record as both Tim Mayotte and Connors lost 17 matches in succession against Ivan Lendl, and Tomas Berdych went 17 matches without success against Rafael Nadal (a run which included the 2010 Wimbledon final). 

Already this year, four streaks have been in the news, the first of which was Andreas Seppi's record against Roger Federer (pictured above). Seppi had lost his previous 10 encounters with Federer, but won their eleventh, which just happened to be a third-round match at this year's Australian Open. Inevitably - and this is inevitable, for there is no greater certainty in tennis - within moments of the match ending, someone somewhere would have been saying, or tweeting: "Nobody beats Andreas Seppi 11 times in a row." 

But arguably the most significant of the streaks to end this year was Berdych's run against Nadal, which snapped in the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park. If the Czech had been beaten again he would have been in the unenviable position of becoming the first man of modern times to lose 18 matches in a row against the same opponent. This time, Berdych had devised a way to beat the Majorcan, and the streak was gone. Once again, that Gerulaitis quote was adapted for modern usage because nobody beats Tomas Berdych 18 times in a row. 

The other of the men's losing streaks to come crashing down in early 2015 was Gilles Simon's against Andy Murray. The Frenchman had been on a 12-match losing run against Murray before their meeting in the quarter-finals of the indoor tournament in Rotterdam. On the eve of the match he send this tweet, which had echoes of Gerulaitis: "One reassuring statistic before playing against Andy - no one has ever beaten me 13 times in a row." Simon duly stopped the streak at 12, and afterwards spoke of his "unexpected win". 

All this should, you feel, be of some inspiration to Maria Sharapova, whose defeat against Serena Williams in the final of the Australian Open meant that she had lost her last 16 matches against the American. That's over a decade of disappointment for the Siberian; you have to go all the way back to 2004 for Sharapova's only two victories against Williams, which came in the Wimbledon final and then the season-ending championships in Los Angeles.

But that's not to say that Sharapova wasn't competitive against Williams in Melbourne, for she was truly was. Would it really be all that surprising if Sharapova were to win their next match and to then declare: "Nobody beats Maria Sharapova 17 times in a row."

And if she doesn't say it, someone else surely would.