| Barclays ATP World Tour Finals - past, present and future |
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is the flagship event and season finale of the ATP World Tour. The prestigious event, will be contested for the first time at the 02 arena in London in November 2009, replacing the previously named, Tennis Masters Cup.
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals will feature the world’s best 8 singles players and 8 doubles teams competing to become the number one player of the year and $5 million in total prize money.
Previously, the Tennis Masters Cup returned to Shanghai, China for four years beginning in 2005. Following the huge success of the Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai 2002, China’s largest city won the right, after a six-month worldwide bidding process, to stage the season finale from 2005-2008.
The tournament was staged at the new state-of-the-art Qi Zhong (pronounced Chi-Jong) Tennis Center, which is Asia’s biggest, built on 80 acres in the Minghang district, 27 kilometers southwest of the city. The Tennis Center, completed in 2005, includes a dual-purpose indoor-outdoor 15,000-seat center court and 40 indoor and outdoor courts.
The Tennis Masters Cup returned to the United States for 2003 and 2004 when a two year contract was signed with Jim McInvale to stage the singles and doubles event at the West Side Tennis Club in Houston, Texas. Both years proved successful for Roger Federer, in 2003 the Swiss maestro defeated Andre Agassi to take his first Masters title, despite the victory he was unable to overtake Andy Roddick for the No. 1 ranking position. 2004 was a different story, after winning three Grand Slams during the year, Federer had the year-end No. 1 position secured by September but capped his year by yet again winning in Houston, this time beating for world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt.
In 2002 in Shanghai, Lleyton Hewitt claimed the year-end World No. 1 title for the second consecutive year on his way to winning back-to-back titles. Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai was the largest international sporting event ever held in China, and was televised to 146 countries.
In 2001, the Tennis Masters Cup was held in Sydney, Australia, where Hewitt became the youngest year-end world No.1 in history. En route to the title he defeated countryman Pat Rafter in his final round-robin match in front of 16,800 people - the largest crowd to watch a tennis match in Australia in 50 years.
In 2000, the inaugural Tennis Masters Cup was held in Lisbon, Portugal. Gustavo Kuerten captured the Tennis Masters Cup shield with a straight-sets victory over Andre Agassi to finish in first place in the ATP Champions Race and become the year-end World No. 1. If he had lost, he would have finished No. 2 behind Marat Safin, so it was the first time in history the World No. 1 title was decided by the final match of the season.
For archived Tennis Masters Cup News reports, please click on the links below:
TMC 2008
TMC 2007
TMC 2006
TMC 2005
TMC 2004
TMC 2003
TMC 2002
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