The ATP is a body that was formed in 1972 to protect the interests of male professional tennis players on the circuit. ATP tennis is a very important body that looks after the players’ interests and decides the fixtures of the tournaments to be held throughout the year in every season.
The rankings of the players are published every week based on their performance in that particular week. There is a point system that determines the relative ranking of the tennis players. The ATP is only for the male players while the female players have got their own WTP.
There is an ATP tennis ranking that determines how a player is going to be seeded for a particular tournament. All the tournaments are taken into account for the rankings except for the tennis Master’s Cup which is dropped at the end of the year. The player with the greatest number of points by the end of the year is declared No. 1.
Apart from this, there is also the ATP race which determines which players and teams are going to participate in the Master’s Cup. The top eight players from singles, according to their points, and the top four from the tennis doubles, are selected for the Master’s Cup.
Tennis has come a long way since the open era and ATP has been one of the highlighted stories. The Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP as it is more commonly known was formed in 1972 to act as a custodian of the rights and interests of male professional tennis players from all over the world.
The women players have their own association which goes by the acronym WTP. It formed a computerized system to manage the player rankings and determine the entry of different players in different tournaments. The ATP is responsible for conducting all the tournaments in a particular year and also ranks the tennis players according to their performance in a calendar year.
The ATP tour is basically a compilation of all the tournaments which are going to be played in a year. The various tournaments included in this are the Grand Slams, ATP World Tour Masters 1000, ATP World Tour 500 series, and the like.
Apart from the mainstream opens, the ATP Tour also organizes the World Team Cup which is played in Dusseldorf every year in May. It also holds the Blackrock Tour of Champions for seniors.
The players who have garnered points through the year due to their performance in the various tennis tournaments held in the year are allotted rankings in the year-end Master’s Cup. They are seeded as per their performance.
The ATP Challenger Tennis Series was the former name of the ATP Challenger Tour until it got a revamp in the dying stages of 2008. The series consists of several international men’s tennis matches which allow the players to earn points so that they can qualify to the ATP level.
The general tournament into which they gain entry is the 250 series tournament which is the main draw level. This series is fully under the control and is organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The first version of the Challenger Tennis tournament was held in 1978.
The first year saw a total of 18 events being covered. The first events were held in Auckland and Hobart respectively in January while the rest of the events were held starting from June 18th till the end of August.
Several places were chosen to play the matches. This is in stark contrast to the staggering number of matches, 178 in total, that were played in 2008 alone.
The matches took place over a huge number of 40 countries which gives an idea of how the series has blossomed into a high-profile event. The importance of the ATP Challenge tour in the tennis circuit cannot be undermined by any means.
