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
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.