ATP Finals


The ATP Finals is the second highest tier of annual men's tennis tournament after the four Grand Slam tournaments.
A week-long event, the tournament is held annually each November at the O2 Arena in London, United Kingdom. In 2021 it will move to Turin, Italy. The ATP Finals are the season-ending championships of the ATP Tour and feature the top eight singles players and doubles teams of the ATP Rankings. The tournament was first held in 1970, although it was known under a different name.
Roger Federer holds the record for the most singles titles with six, while Peter Fleming and John McEnroe hold the record for the most doubles titles with seven.
In the current tournament, winners are awarded up to 1500 ranking points; with each round-robin loss, 200 points are deducted from that amount.

History

The event is the fourth evolution of a championship which began in 1970. It was originally known as the Masters Grand Prix and was part of the Grand Prix Tennis Circuit. It was organised by the International Lawn Tennis Federation. It ran alongside the competing WCT Finals. The Masters was a year-end showpiece event between the best players on the men's tour, but did not count for any world ranking points.
In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals took over the running of the men's tour and replaced the Masters with the ATP Tour World Championship. World ranking points were now at stake, with an undefeated champion earning the same number of points they would for winning one of the four Grand Slam events. The ITF, who continued to run the Grand Slam tournaments, created a rival year-end event known as the Grand Slam Cup, which was contested by the 16 players with the best records in Grand Slam competitions that year.
In December 1999, the ATP and ITF agreed to discontinue the two separate events and create a new jointly-owned event called the Tennis Masters Cup. As with the Masters Grand Prix and the ATP Tour World Championships, the Tennis Masters Cup was contested by eight players. However, player who is ranked number eight in the ATP Champion's Race world rankings does not have a guaranteed spot. If a player who wins one of the year's Grand Slam events finishes the year ranked outside the top eight but still within the top 20, he is included in the Tennis Masters Cup instead of the eighth-ranked player. If two players outside the top eight win Grand Slam events, the higher placed player in the world rankings takes the final spot in the Tennis Masters Cup.
In 2009, the Masters was renamed the ATP World Tour Finals and was held at The O2 in London. The contract ran through 2013, but was extended up to 2015 in 2012, and another time until 2018 in 2015. In 2017 the event was renamed the ATP Finals and the contract with the O2 Arena was extended to 2020. In December 2018 it was announced that London, along with Manchester, Singapore, Tokyo and Turin were on a shortlist of five cities which made the cut from an initial list of 40 to host the event from 2021. In April 2019 the ATP announced that Turin is going to host the ATP finals from 2021 to 2025.
For many years, the doubles event was held as a separate tournament the week after the singles competition, but more recently they have been held together in the same week and venue.
For most of its history, the event has been considered as the most important indoor tennis tournament on the world tour, allowing for controlled conditions of play, regarding both surface type and illumination system.
In recent years it has been played on indoor hard courts, however, indoor carpet has featured for many editions previously. Once when Melbourne hosted it in 1974 the grass courts of Kooyong Stadium were used and occurred a few weeks before the 1974 Australian Open, which were also played on grass. Apart from 1974, all tournaments have been on a hard court variant, which has prompted calls, primarily from Rafael Nadal to feature a mix of surfaces and include clay courts. However, this has drawn criticism as well as suggestions to reduce the number of clay court tournaments in the season and the ATP are not keen to change this aspect of the tournament.

Qualification

There are eight players or teams, and playing is mandatory except for injury or other good cause.
Qualification is as follows:
the top seven players in the ATP rankings
up to two grand slam winners ranked between 8 and 20
the next players in the ATP rankings, until the quota of eight is reached.

Past finals

Singles

Doubles

Points, prize money and trophies

The ATP Finals currently rewards the following points and prize money, per victory:
StageSinglesDoubles1Points
Round Robin $215,000$40,000200
Semifinal$657,000$106,000400
Final$1,354,000$204,000500
Undefeated Champion$2,871,000$533,0001500

There is also an appearance fee of $215,000 singles, and $103,000 per doubles team. The two alternates are paid $116,000 and $40,000.
An undefeated champion would earn the maximum 1,500 points, and $2,871,000 in singles or $533,000 in doubles.
In addition, prizes include the Barclays ATP Singles and Doubles World Tour Finals Trophies and the ATP Tour World No.1 Trophy, all made by London-based silversmiths Thomas Lyte

Format

Unlike all other singles events on the men's tour, the ATP Finals is not a straightforward knock-out tournament. Eight players are divided into two groups of four and play three round-robin matches each against the other players in their group. The two players with the best records in each group progress to the semifinals, with the winners meeting in the final to determine the champion. Though it is theoretically possible to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament with two round-robin losses no player in the history of the singles tournament has won the title after losing more than one round-robin match.
The current round robin format of two groups of four players progressing to a semifinal and final, has been in place for all editions of the tournament except the following years:
As of 2019, the top two players from each group advance to the semi-finals. Round-robin standings are determined by: 1) Number of wins; 2) Number of matches; 3) In two-players-ties, head-to-head results; 4) In three-players-ties, percentage of sets won, then head-to-head result ATP rankings.

Sponsors

The tournament has traditionally been sponsored by the title sponsor of the tour; however, in 1990–2008 the competition was non-sponsored, even though the singles portion of the event as part of the ATP tour was sponsored by IBM. In 2009, the tournament gained Barclays PLC as title sponsor. Barclays confirmed in 2015 that they would not renew their sponsorship deal once it expires in 2016.
On 25 May 2017, it was announced that Nitto Denko will be the main sponsor for the tournament, at least until 2020.

Venues

=Indoors

Singles

Statistics

Most singles titles:
  1. Roger Federer – 6
  2. Novak Djokovic – 5
Ivan Lendl – 5
Pete Sampras – 5
  1. Ilie Năstase – 4
Most consecutive singles titles:
  1. Novak Djokovic – 4
  2. Ivan Lendl – 3
Ilie Năstase – 3
  1. Roger Federer – 2
Pete Sampras – 2
John McEnroe – 2
Björn Borg – 2
Lleyton Hewitt – 2
Most singles match wins:
  1. Roger Federer – 59
  2. Ivan Lendl – 39
  3. Boris Becker – 36
Novak Djokovic – 36
  1. Pete Sampras – 35
Most singles match wins %:
  1. Ilie Năstase – 88.0%
  2. Ivan Lendl – 79.6%
  3. Roger Federer – 77.6%
  4. Boris Becker – 73.5%
Novak Djokovic – 72.0%
Most singles appearances:
  1. Roger Federer – 17
  2. Andre Agassi – 13
  3. Ivan Lendl – 12
Novak Djokovic – 12
  1. Boris Becker – 11
Jimmy Connors – 11
Pete Sampras – 11
Most doubles titles:
  1. Peter Fleming – 7
John McEnroe – 7
  1. Mike Bryan – 5

  1. Bob Bryan – 4
Daniel Nestor – 4