Men's Tennis: 5 facts about the ATP World Tour Finals

The 2018 edition of the Nitto ATP Finals is scheduled to start next week and Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer will start as favorites in their respective groups. The prestigious tournament awards 1500 ranking points to the winner minus 200 for every round-robin loss making it the most lucrative and awarding tournament on the ATP calendar after the four Grand Slams.

A whopping $2.7 million USD in prize money is awarded to the winner. The tournament was played for the first time in 1970 and American Stan Smith was the inaugural champion. Smith also won the Doubles title that year with Arthur Ashe. The 2017 edition of the tournament saw Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov emerge victorious giving him the biggest trophy of his career. The O2 Arena in London is the present venue of the tournament.

Here are 5 facts about the last tournament in the ATP season calendar that you were probably not aware of :

# The tournament has been conducted in 14 different venues

Qizhong Arena, Shanghai was the host of the ATP Finals from 2005 to 2008

The first edition of the tournament which took place in 1970 was held in Tokyo. Since then, the tournament has been held in Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne, Stockholm, Houston, New York, Frankfurt, Hanover, Lisbon, Sydney, Shanghai, and London. The tournament has been played on Grass, Carpet, and Hard Courts. Since 2006, the event has been played indoors.

The O2 Arena in London has been the venue of the tournament since 2009. Shanghai first hosted the vent in 2002 and was the venue between 2005 and 2008. Houston played host in 1976 and later in 2003-2004. Shanghai and Houston thus are the only two venues where the tournament has returned after moving elsewhere. The tournament was also notably held at the famous Madison Square Garden Arena in New York between 1977 to 1989.

# ITF was the organizer of the event in the early years

Grigor Dimitrov with the 2017 Nitto ATP World Tour Finals trophy

The tournament was christened as 'Masters Grand Prix' and was held under the aegis of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) from 1970 to 1989. During this period, no ranking points were awarded for participation in the tournament. ATP took over the running of the tournament in 1990 and renamed it as ATP Tour World Championship.

ITF created a rival event called the 'Grand Slam Cup' and it was only in 1999 that the two tournaments were merged and the tournament was re-branded as 'Tennis Masters Cup'. In its present avatar, the tournament is just known as 'ATP Finals'.

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# Most Singles appearances

Andre Agassi

The man widely considered to be 'GOAT', Roger Federer has made a record 16 appearances including making the final 10 times. Roger made his first appearance in 2002 and won his first ATP Finals title the following year beating Andre Agassi in the final.

2018 will mark the 17th appearance of Federer in this tournament. Federer has participated in the tournament unbroken from 2002 to 2017 barring 2016 when he ended his season after Wimbledon. Andre Agassi is second in the list with 13 appearances.

# Most successful Doubles Team

John McEnroe

American duo Peter Fleming and John McEnroe who won 6 Grand Slam doubles tournaments together also won the ATP Doubles Finals a record 6 consecutive times between 1978 and 1984.

McEnroe is the only man to win the singles and doubles ATP Finals event multiple times each. He won the ATP Finals in Singles category three times. The Bryan twins have won the ATP Finals trophy on 4 occasions and are joint second in the all-time list along with recently retired Canadian Doubles legend Daniel Nestor.

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# Most Singles titles

Roger Federer

Unsurprisingly Roger Federer tops the list of players with the most singles trophies at the ATP Finals. Federer who mas made a record 16 appearances in this event till date including an unbroken spell from 2002 to 2015, has made the final of the tournament on 10 different occasions, winning in 6 times and finishing as runner-up on 4 occasions.

His first title came in 2003, the same year he won the first of his eight Wimbledon crowns. Federer won the event again in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2011. He will be looking to win a record-extending 7th title and will hope to fend off the challenge from newly crowned World Number 1 Novak Djokovic, who with 5 titles, will be looking to tie Federer on the all-time list.