ATP WORLD TOUR SEASON REVIEW 2013 IN REVIEW: ATP HERITAGE PROGRAMME

ATP WORLD TOUR SEASON REVIEW

 

2013 IN REVIEW: ATP HERITAGE PROGRAMME

 

Best Of 2013

 

(by ATP Staff  | 21.12.2013)

 

 

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Media/Video-Landing/*/Tennis/Media/Videos/Uploaded/2013/8/24/ATP-Heritage-No-1-Celebration-Highlights.aspx#ooid=VndnZ4ZDrb7IAfo9Yjd0_KtluJJwqSnl

 

 

Thanks to the vision of the late ATP Executive Chairman & President, Brad Drewett, the ATP Heritage Programme was born in February 2013.

 

Marking 40 years of the Emirates ATP Rankings, the ATP Heritage Programme celebrates a remarkable journey taken by players, tournaments and fans since 1973.

 

A special commemorative coffee table book was published by the ATP during Wimbledon, celebrating all the year-end ATP World Tour No. 1s over the past 40 years.

 

The unique celebratory book, entitled ‘No. 1’, featured exclusive interviews with No. 1s past and present, as well as never-seen-before photography over the past 40 years.

 

‘No. 1’ is available for purchase at UK book stores, and online through Tennis Warehouse

 

Visit ATP Heritage Section

 

The protagonists then shared the same stage in New York at the No. 1 Celebration gala on the eve of the US Open.

 

Champions paid tribute to generations past and present as an unprecedented gathering of No. 1s took place.

 

Ilie Nastase, who became the first ATP World No. 1 on 23 August 1973, was present to be honoured on the night, along with successors John Newcombe, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Jim Courier, Marcelo Rios, Carlos Moya, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Gustavo Kuerten, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

 

The four decades' worth of No. 1s shared a stage - and some fond memories as well.

 

The evening also included a tribute to Drewett, who had passed away in May following a battle with Motor Neurone Disease.

 

Federer thanked those that came before him, like childhood idol Edberg.

 

"It was important for me to have someone to look up to," said Federer, the record-holder for most weeks at No. 1.

 

''I know there's been a huge sacrifice at the players' level, just this generation and the players sitting here tonight, and even before that. We've put such huge effort in the game, and that's a platform we can enjoy today.''

 

As part of the ATP Heritage Programme, ATP WorldTour.com marked historic anniversaries throughout the 2013 season.

 

The Rankings That Changed Tennis

 

The 23rd August marked the 40th anniversary of the Emirates ATP Rankings.

 

After quickly earning legitimacy and credibility, the rankings have become an indispensable part of tennis accepted universally by players, tournaments and fans.

 

The Tour Born In A Parking Lot

 

Few tennis media conferences have resonated like 'The Parking Lot Press Conference', held 25 years ago on 30 August 1988, a seminal moment in ATP history.

 

With the ATP logo hastily duct-taped to the podium, a rented PA system and a parking lot for a venue, the 1988 press conference that crystalised momentum for the birth of the ATP Tour could be called 'no frills' at best.

 

http://www.atpworldtour.com/

 

(ATP, 21 Saturday December 2013 The Roman)

 

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2013: Andy Murray, champion of a great sporting year

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2013: Andy Murray, champion of a great sporting year

 

Tennis player proves the greatest star in an almighty scramble for Sports Personality award that reflects a return to Britain’s Olympic glory

 

[caption id="attachment_10769" align="alignnone" width="400"] (Andy Murray poses with his award, in Miami, Florida (Photo AP))[/caption]

 

This afternoon, before hosting the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year show, Gabby Logan tweeted a picture of the set in Leeds.

 

And my, it looked impressive, suggesting that despite all available evidence there was some money left in the BBC’s kitty after sending out half the staff to cover Nelson Mandela’s passing.

 

A ravishing swirl of steel and glass, the centrepiece was a scaffolding structure resembling a giant water-wheel.

 

On its shelves sat some of the great trophies of sport.

 

The irony is these are trophies whose victory rites are these days largely broadcast elsewhere.

 

It is a paradox of our television times that the less sport the BBC has to show, the more lavish its annual sporting awards ceremony has become.

 

When it was first shown in 1954, when the corporation was the nation’s sole broadcaster, the BBC Sports Review of the Year ran for just 45 minutes, with the revelation of the leading individual tagged on to the end.

 

This year, when everyone from Sky through to Channel 4 to BT has cherry-picked off the BBC’s live portfolio, the 60th anniversary show ran for around three hours.

 

It was a ceremony filled with artful short films of the contenders shot in pixelated slo-mo, an event tailored for The X Factor generation, so bedecked in cutesy production flourishes Lady Gaga might consider it a tad over the top.

 

But even if the evening rarely passes off without manufactured bombast, ritual sycophancy and self-inflicted embarrassment, there is one thing about the BBC award: it still matters.

 

This is a piece of silverware every British sportsperson wants on their mantelpiece.

 

This is, moreover, an award that perfectly reflects the times.

 

The great peaks of British sporting history are writ large in the list of previous winners.

 

Bobby Moore won it in 1966, Ian Botham in 1981, Jonny Wilkinson in 2003 and Sir Bradley Wiggins in 2012.

 

But when the sport has been rubbish, when the year is characterised by a plucky Brit trudging home in a brave seventh place, then invariably the Sports Personality suffers.

 

In those times the show is dismissed as an embarrassment, an anachronism, a joke.

 

And the winner is hurriedly forgotten.

 

Not this time.

 

In brilliant refutation of the idea that 2012’s Olympic-driven glory could never be matched, this year the gong had been pursued with an almighty scramble of excellence.

 

What a year of British effort was reflected in those going for the honours.

 

There was AP McCoy, the jockey with his 4,000 winners; Justin Rose triumphing in the US Open golf; the cyclist Chris Froome picking up Sir Brad’s baton in the Tour; Mo Farah doing a clean sweep at the world athletics championships and Sir Ben Ainslie, the sailor who single-handedly turned around the America’s Cup.

 

If any of them had been doing what they did this year in 1997, the winner Greg Rusedski, whose principal claim was losing in the US Open tennis final, would have been lucky to get an invitation.

 

Yet they all went home empty-handed this time.

 

There was only ever one candidate for the supreme honour.

 

In the year he became the first Briton in three quarters of a century to win the men’s singles competition at Wimbledon, Andy Murray’s achievement was of such resonance it was always certain to see off even that stellar list of contenders.

 

Not that he was there to receive his invitation to the pantheon in person.

 

Murray did not win Wimbledon by curtailing his relentlessly masochistic winter training schedule.

 

Never mind the enormous commercial benefit in turning up in Leeds, he remained in his camp in Florida.

 

Across the years when he has been in contention, he has politely declined the invitation to break his training with a transatlantic flight and has stayed in the warmth.

 

Last year, things got toe-curlingly awkward when he was obliged to present himself with the runners-up gong after Lennox Lewis, who was supposed to do the honours, missed his cue.

 

Murray continues the award’s astonishing pattern.

 

The last six winners have been from, in order, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and England.

 

This is truly a British competition, a symbol of a united sporting nation.

 

In a great year, Murray is our greatest star.

 

(The Telegraph, 15 Sunday December 2013 The Roman)

 

ATP rates 2 Nadal-Djokovic matches as tops of 2013

ATP rates 2 Nadal-Djokovic matches as tops of 2013

 

[caption id="attachment_10399" align="alignnone" width="400"] (Spanish world No. 1 Rafael Nadal is shown in this file photo. Nadal's victory over Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the Montreal Masters and his five-set defeat of the Serbian in the French Open semis were chosen by the ATP World Tour as the two best matches of 2013. (EFE/File))[/caption]

 

Madrid, Nov 28 (EFE).- Spanish world No. 1 Rafael Nadal's victory over Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the Montreal Masters and his five-set defeat of the Serbian in the French Open semis were chosen by the ATP World Tour as the two best matches of 2013.

 

Nadal's 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2) win in Montreal was chosen as the best match at an ATP World Tour event, while his 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7 (3-7), 9-7 triumph at Roland Garros was considered the best match at one of the four Grand Slam events, which are governed by the International Tennis Federation.

 

(Agencia EFE, 28 Thursday November 2013 The Roman)