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atp finals

Novak Djokovic Continues To Make Tennis History With ATP Finals Win In Turin

November 21, 2022 by tennisbloggers Leave a Comment

Novak Djokovic is continuing to re-write the tennis history books.

The Serbian sensation won a record-equaling sixth ATP Finals title in Turin, Italy by beating Casper Ruud 7-5, 6-3 to equal Roger Federer’s record of six titles at the year-end championships.

To boot, Djokovic, at age 35, became the oldest ever winner of the event and pocketed the largest pay day in the history of tennis – $4,740,300, which is $300,000 more than Ash Barty’s payday for winning the WTA Tour finals three years ago.

Djokovic, who had lost his two previous finals at the event, won the tournament for the first time in seven years.

“Seven years has been a long time,” Djokovic said. “At the same time, the fact that I waited seven years makes this victory even sweeter and even bigger. A lot of nerves … I missed a couple of forehands in the last game when I was serving for it. I had nerves, but I am really grateful to be able to serve the match out. I had a big ace to close out.”

It was Ruud’s fourth defeat in a big championship match this year after also losing finals at Miami, Roland Garros and the US Open. Ruud has never won a set against Djokovic in four meetings.

“In the end it’s been disappointing to end up losing these big finals,” Ruud said. “Overall, if you gave me an offer to end the year at No. 3, play the finals that I’ve played, at the 1st of January this year I would probably sign the contract right away. No doubt about it.

“It gives me motivation and a hunger to maybe next time — if I ever get to another final like this — I hope I can learn from what I have done this year and not been able to do and see how it goes.”

Djokovic has ended the year with an 18-1 record after winning trophies in Tel Aviv and Astana before reaching the Paris Masters final. His five titles this season also include wins at Wimbledon and in Rome.

Tennis Hall of Famer Steve Flink rated the ’12 Australian Open final between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as No. 7 match ever in his book “The Greatest Tennis Matches of All Time” available for sale here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Tennis-Matches-Time/dp/0942257936/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358104976&sr=8-2&keywords=Steve+Flink

Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic

Filed Under: Blogs, Featured Columns, Latest News, Lead Story Tagged With: atp finals, Casper Ruud, Novak Djokovic, Wimbledon

Turin, Italy To Be New Home For ATP Finals From 2021-2025

April 24, 2019 by tennisbloggers

Turin, Italy, has been selected to host the ATP Finals from 2021-2025, the ATP Tour has announced. The five-year agreement will see the world’s greatest players in men’s professional tennis compete for the biggest indoor tennis title in the world at Turin’s Pala Alpitour stadium, Italy’s largest indoor sporting arena.

The winning Turin bid was put together by the Italian Tennis Federation and Sport e Salute SpA in partnership with the Italian Government, the municipality of Turin and Regione Piemonte. The move to Turin brings the ATP Finals to Italy for the first time in its 50-year history and makes Turin the 15th city to host the prestigious season-ending tournament since its inception in 1970.

Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman & President, said: “Our congratulations to Turin on putting together such a comprehensive and impressive bid. Italy provides us with one of the strongest and most established tennis markets in Europe and has a proven track record for hosting world class tennis events with the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, as well as the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan. We’re delighted to expand on our successful partnership with the FIT and Sport e Salute SpA and we look forward to bringing the ATP’s flagship season-ending event to tennis’s growing fanbase in Italy for the first time.

“The success of the ATP Finals is critical to the health of the ATP and we believe that Turin has all the ingredients to take the event to new heights and to continue the tournament’s growth following a highly successful 12-year stint in London that will come to an end in 2020. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our event partners in London, particularly AEG, and all the fans that have made the tournament such a success at The O2 since 2009.”

Novak Djokovic, World No.1 and President of the ATP Player Council, said: “The ATP Finals is the biggest and most prestigious event that we have at the ATP. It’s a tournament that has historically moved around and so I’m very excited to see it move to Turin from 2021. It’s still a few years away but I know that the players will be very excited to compete there, and I also hope to be part of what will be a very special event.”

Chiara Appendino, Mayor of Turin, said: “We are extremely proud that Turin has been chosen to host the ATP Finals 2021-2025 as sport has long been a significant part of the history and the culture of our city. As a City we will come together to harness the knowhow of a vast range of local experts in organizing international sporting events and we are confident that our unique combination of passion and experience will deliver opportunities to appreciate this exhilarating sport in sustainable and innovative ways. Turin looks forward to building a truly spectacular event for players and fans the world over!”

Angelo Binaghi, President of the Italian Tennis Federation, said: “The assignment of the great task to organize the ATP Finals in Turin from 2021 to 2025 represents a remarkable international success of our country. Our project has proved to be extremely successful thanks to the great work carried out together with the Italian Government and the local authorities. A team work which I am sure will live up to the wonderful tradition of the end-of-season historical Masters, and offer a very brilliant future”.

The unique season-ending tournament, featuring only the world’s best eight qualified singles players and doubles teams of the season, will boast a record prize purse of US$14,500,000 in 2021.

Turin was the first capital city of Italy from 1861 to 1865. The city has hosted some of the world’s biggest sporting events, such as the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and is also home to two Serie A football teams, Juventus FC and Torino FC. The ATP’s decision brings to a close an extensive international bid process that began in August 2018 in which more than 40 cities worldwide expressed an interest in hosting the ATP season finale.

An official presentation with representatives from ATP, FIT, Italian government and City of Torino will take place in Turin on Monday 29th April at 12:30PM at Palazzo Madama, Piazza Castello.

Filed Under: Blogs, Featured Columns, Latest News, Lead Story Tagged With: atp finals, italy, Turn

Grigor Dimitrov Caps Career-Best Year With Career-Best Title at Nitto ATP Finals

November 19, 2017 by tennisbloggers

He used to be called “Baby Fed” due to his similarity to Roger Federer but Grigor Dimitrov now has his own pro tennis identity.

The Bulgarian ended his best season to date of his career winning the Nitto ATP Finals in London beating David Goffin 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 to win the season-ending championships during his debut.

The prestigious title marked the fourth title for Dimitrov in 2017 – a career-high – and it is the eighth of his career. Earlier this year, he also reached the Australian Open semifinals and won the ATP Masters Series title in Cincinnati, his best career tournament win prior to his triumph in London. Dimitrov will also rise to a career-high No. 3 ranking.

“This makes me even more locked in, more excited about my work, and for what’s to come,” Dimitrov said. “It’s a great platform for me to build on for next year. It’s going to be amazing in the off-season. I know what I have to do in order to do good.”

He became the first debutant to win the Nitto ATP Finals title since Spaniard Alex Corretja in 1998. To read more about the history of the event, also formerly known as The Masters, buy or download a copy of The Bud Collins History of Tennis here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559386/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_sPHeAb8TYM0H1

The Bulgarian, who finished 5-0 this week in London, earned $2,549,000 in prize money and 1,500 Emirates ATP Rankings points.

Dimitrov benefited from the withdrawal of world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and world No. 2 Roger Federer falling to Goffin in the semifinals. Defending champion Andy Murray and four-time champion Novak Djokovic also were missing from the event due to injuries.

Grigor Dimitrov
Grigor Dimitrov

Filed Under: Archives, Blogs, Featured Columns, Latest News, Lead Story Tagged With: atp finals, david goffin, Grigor Dimitrov

Doubles is double the fun at Barclay's ATP World Tour Championships

November 8, 2012 by tennisbloggers

By Jane Voigt, owner of DownTheTee.com 

November 7, 2012 — You’ve heard this before, “Why don’t they show more doubles?”
Why indeed.
But ask any producer and you’ll hear the expected rap, “It doesn’t sell ad space.”
The response is enough to shove dreams of American realism – the rags to riches story – in a deep hole. Their reasoning diverts to money, not entertainment, not consumer desires, not the absolutely awesome nature of the game of doubles.
Have they ever really watched it? Followed it? Way more interesting than singles.
First, four players are on court. That mathematically equals twice the entertainment and ticket value, twice the tennis, and twice what you would expect as added coverage. That means more jobs! Think about that you international politicians. You want an uptick in popularity, promise to televise doubles. It’s a slick ticket made in re-election heaven.
The political benefits aside, doubles fanatics, which we all know are more numerous than singles fanatics, can get their fill this week by tuning in to The Barclay’s World Tour Finals from London. Not only are the top eight teams from the year on hand to delight the packed O2 Arena, they are first up each session. You could conclude they are the premier matches of the week.
Here are more reasons doubles are twice the fun.

Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek partner up at the ATP World Tour Finals in London

Two people play to win a point, game, set and match. Two means a relationship; they are partners. This logically suggests the introduction of complicated human interactions, which is lost in singles competition. Unless, of course, you construe the rantings of a player toward a support box as interaction.
Teams converse between points. Do knuckle bumps, high fives, signal tactics to their partner before a toss, and if the Bryan brothers are battling … chest bumps. Can’t see that in any other sport. Soccer players may leap into each others arms, but so can the brothers. They won’t skid across a tennis court on their knees though, for obvious and injurious reasons. Well, maybe on grass.
Let’s face it, doubles is way more interesting to watch. Teams serve and volley, change sides, yell ‘out’ so their partners don’t do something stupid like give away a point, and find every lucky angle and spot on a court.
They hit deep ground strokes, short under-spins, half-volleys, and magnificent overhead smashes that crack like a whip.
With four players at the net, the rata-tat-tat of volley exchanges builds audience energy to a fevered pitch. It’s a wonder the men don’t hear it.
It’s wild. It’s exciting.
Doubles is a complicated game, too, because of its nature. In singles every ball is for you. Not so in doubles. There is order to returns and movement, although scrambling to cover an open spot may look like mayhem.

The Teams

Bob and Mike Bryan are the best at movement. As twins, they intuitively know what the other will do. Their expectations are in sync, which puts them at a mighty high level of performance in sports. One person can enter the zone, yes, but two acting as a team … not so easy. They are the number one seeds this week.
Throughout their career they have clinched 82 ATP titles — the most of any doubles team. They will end 2013 at number one for the eighth time, and the fourth consecutive. At the U. S. Open they won their 12th slam, an Open-era record. To top off their season, they won a gold medal at the London Olympics.
Daniel Nestor and Max Mirnyi are the defending champions. So far they are 1-1 in round robin play. They seem to be in the ‘harder’ group, along with Wimbledon doubles champions, Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielson. They are 2-0 and the most unlikely team on hand.
Marray is the first native-born Briton to play in this tournament; and Nielsen teamed with Marray seconds before the deadline to enter Wimbledon this summer. Nielsen’s record has been about singles and after this week he will return to that discipline, leaving Marray to search for a partner. If they continue to mesmerize win, he won’t be left out in the cold for long. But, then again, partners are not just a matter of availability.
Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek were the last team to qualify. It’s Stepanek’s inaugural World Tour Championship.

Scoring

With all the fun available for fans, the choice of no-ad scoring has been hard to understand. And, any promotion that dares to intimate this is a ‘fifth grand slam’ should have their funding cut. No major tournament would allow no-add scoring.
The lovely dynamics of doubles is negated in this format. At 40-all, the serving team picks the side from where they’d like to serve. This point ends the game. Ordinarily, these top-flight teams groove to a different rhythm. Teetering between ad-in and ad-out is familiar. They are trained for this. It gives them chances to come back, use their strengths – both mental and tactical. The better team can hold with more consistency, which is the pinnacle of skill in tennis.
The no-ad scoring in London, though, throws randomness at the competition. It doesn’t serve the tournament, players, or 15,000 fans that pack the house every session.
As a result the outcomes of the matches have an odd undercurrent. If you look at the match stats, the losing teams have won more points than the winning teams. Not by much, but it’s lopsided. This means they’ve won more service and return points.
In their loss to Mirnyi and Nestor on Monday, Robert Lindstedt and Horacio Tecau won 83% of their second service points, an incredibly high percentage. Their opponents won 43%. Lindstedt/Tecau converted all their break point changes, too. Mirnyi/Nestor went 0 for 2.
Five of the six matches have been decided by 10-point champions tiebreaks. First to ten by two. This is the only remnants of normalcy in London. They are used throughout the season. And every world tour player knows that tiebreaks should be avoided. Without regular scoring, though, the outcomes this week will not reflect the depth that these men can achieve in the sets that precede the tiebreaks. The scoring robbed them of a type of play that demonstrates their excellence. They literally cannot play their games, which is a shame for the deserved prestige assigned them.
Jane Voigt lives, breathes and writes tennis. She wrote about John Isner’s ground-breaking wildcard run at the formerly named Legg Mason Tennis Classic in 2007 for Tennis.com. She has written tennis commentary for the late, great Tennis Week print publication and online version. Hundreds of articles from Jane have been seen on TennisServer.com, too. She now maintains her own website at DownTheTee.com, and has traveled throughout the U. S. and Canada to cover tournaments. Ask her to play tennis, and she’ll prefer singles to doubles.

Filed Under: Lead Story Tagged With: atp finals, Bryan Brothers, Daniel NEstor, doubles tennis, Frederik Nielson, Horacio Tecau, Jonathan Marray, Max Mirnyi, Radek Stepanek, Robert Lindstedt, top doubles tennis players

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