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Tennis Masters Cup History and Format
Posted: Sun December 3, 2000 at 7:10 a.m EST The season-ending event on the men's tennis tour has undergone many changes since it began in 1970. This year's edition, the Tennis Masters Cup, begins Tuesday in Lisbon, Portugal. The following is a brief history of the event and its format. From 1970-1989, the season-ending championship tournament was known as the Masters. It was played at various sites around the world before finding a home in New York at Madison Square Garden in 1977. Until this year, fields for the season-ending championships consisted of the players who earned the most ranking points during that calander year. The first two Masters, in Tokyo in 1970 and Paris in 1971, were played under a strict, round-robin format with a six-man field. Players met each of the other five entrants, with the winner determined by the best overall record. Stan Smith won the first Masters title in 1970 with a 4-1 record. For the event's first four years, first prize was $15,000. Ilie Nastase won the 1971 event in Paris with a perfect 6-0 record. In 1972, the Masters was played in Barcelona and had a slightly different format. The field was increased to eight players, split into two groups of four. Each group played a round-robin, with the players with the two best records from either side advancing to the semifinals. Round Robin matches were best-of-three sets, with the semifinals and finals best-of-five. Nastase won again, defeating Smith in the final. That format remained in place through the January, 1981 event that capped the 1980 season. In 1982, the tournament switched to a single-elimination format with an eight-man field. Along the way, first prize was increased to $40,000 in 1974 and $100,000 in 1978. The eight-man, two-group round-robin format with semifinals and finals returned in 1986 and is still in use today. Prize-money distribution also changed in 1986. Each match win was worth a pre-determined amount, allowing champion Ivan Lendl to take home $210,000. In 1990, following the creation of the ATP Tour, the event was moved from Madison Square Garden to Frankfurt, Germany, and became known as the ATP Tour World Championships. The prize money was increased dramatically. Michael Stich earned $1,240,000 for winning the 1993 title. Pete Sampras and Boris Becker, the winners in 1994 and 1995 respectively, took home $1.225 million. Sampras earned a record $1,340,000 by winning his third season-ending title in 1996, the first time the event was held in Hannover, Germany. Three years ago, Sampras became only the third player to win at least four world championships and was the first player to win back-to-back world championships since Lendl captured three in a row from 1985-1987. In 1998, Alex Corretja rallied from two sets down to defeat countryman Carlos Moya and become the first Spaniard to win the event since Manuel Orantes in 1976. Last year, Sampras defeated Andre Agassi in straight sets to tie Lendl on the all-time list with five titles at the season-ending event. Nastase has claimed the championship four times and John McEnroe and Becker each have won it three times. On December 9, 1999, the International Tennis Federation, ATP Tour and Grand Slam Committee announced that the ATP Tour World Championship and Grand Slam Cup would be discontinued and a new jointly-owned season-ending tournament, called the Tennis Masters Cup, would begin this year. The field will consist of the top eight players in the standings for ATP Champions Race 2000, a new season-long points race that will determine the year-end No. 1 ranking at the conclusion of the tournament. The Tennis Masters Cup will rotate annually from city to city. Next year's event will be held in Sydney, Australia.© 2003 SportsTicker Enterprises, LP
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