The ATP World Tour tennis season is one that trundles along for most of the calendar year. Right from the start of January you can find players getting back into the swing of things after short winter breaks. With the season’s first big event, the Australian Open usually starting in mid January, then there is little preparation time in terms of competitive match play, for players to find their feet ahead of the blue courts and heat of Melbourne Park. Yet it is the big tournament which draws immediate interest back into the tennis season right from the start of the year and whets the whistle for the other four Grand Slams.
Of course, not every player turns up for every tournament in the calendar year and the big guns tend to skip a lot of the minor tournaments? Why? Well because of points rankings. The top players like Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray know that they are going to amass enough ranking points and money from the tournaments which they are required to attend across the season, that they don’t have to focus on putting the extra work into lower tiered events.
Of course, that’s not to say that you won’t find the big guns at the smaller events, you will because players have a certain with tournaments, particularly when they are played in their home country. A title defence can always lure a player back, or if a top player is looking to get back to match fitness, the lower-ranked tiers offer a chance to get back into the swing of things without the higher level of competitiveness.
At the end of the day, the players on the ATP Tour just aren’t looking for the prize money at events, they are looking for titles and ranking points which will work them towards the ATP World Tour Finals at the end of the year as well. Higher rankings of course afford better seedings at events and the prestige of trying to make it into the top ten in the World Rankings
For the 2016 ATP World Tour season there will be 34 tournaments played across Europe in locations like France, Russia, Istanbul, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK. That’s just the tip of the iceberg though of course because there are also 13 North American events, four in South America, eight in Asia, four in Australasia and one in Africa (Marrakech).
ATP 2016 Calendar
Date | Tennis Tournament | Venue |
04.01.-10.01. | ATP 250 – Aircel Chennai Open | Chennai |
04.01.-10.01. | ATP 250 – Qatar ExxonMobil Open | Doha |
04.01.-10.01. | ATP 250 – Brisbane International | Brisbane |
11.01.-17.01. | ATP 250 – Apia International Sydney | Sydney |
18.01.-31.01. | Grand Slam – Australian Open | Melbourne |
01.02.-07.02. | ATP 250 – Ecuador Open Quito | Quito |
01.02.-07.02. | ATP 250 – Open Sud de France | Montpellier |
01.02.-07.02. | ATP 250 – Garanti Koza Sofia Open | Sofia |
08.02.-14.02. | ATP 250 – Memphis Open | Memphis |
08.02.-14.02. | ATP 500 – ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament | Rotterdam |
08.02.-14.02. | ATP 250 – Argentina Open | Buenos Aires |
15.02.-21.02. | ATP 250 – Delray Beach Open | Delray Beach |
15.02.-21.02. | ATP 250 – Open 13 | Marseille |
15.02.-21.02. | ATP 500 – Rio Open | Rio de Janeiro |
22.02.-28.02. | ATP 500 – Dubai Duty Free Tennis | Dubai |
22.02.-27.02. | ATP 500 – Abierto Mexicano Telcel | Acapulco |
22.02.-28.02. | ATP 250 – Brasil Open | Sao Paulo |
10.03.-20.03. | ATP 1000 – Indian Wells | Indian Wells |
21.03.-03.04. | ATP 1000 – Miami Open | Miami |
04.04.-10.04. | ATP 250 – US Men’s Clay Court Championship | Houston |
04.04.-10.04. | ATP 250 – Grand Prix Hassan II | Marrakesh |
10.04.-17.04. | ATP 1000 – Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters | Monte-Carlo |
18.04.-24.04. | ATP 500 – Barcelona Open | Barcelona |
18.04.-24.04. | ATP 250 – BRD Nastase Tiriac Trohpy | Bucharest |
25.04.-01.05. | ATP 250 – Millennium Estoril Open | Estoril |
25.04.-01.05. | ATP 250 – BMW Open | Munich |
25.04.-01.05. | ATP 250 – TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open | Istanbul |
01.05.-08.05. | ATP 1000 – Mutua Madrid Open | Madrid |
15.05.-22.05. | ATP 250 – Geneva Open | Geneva |
22.05.-05.06. | Grandslam – Roland Garros | Paris |
06.06.-12.06. | ATP 250 – Mercedes Cup | Stuttgart |
13.06.-19.06. | ATP 500 – Aegon Championships | London |
13.06.-19.06. | ATP 500 – Gerry Weber Open | Halle |
20.06.-26.06. | ATP 250 – Aegon Open Nottingham | Nottingham |
27.06.-10.07. | Grandslam – Wimbledon | London |
11.07.-17.07. | ATP 250 – Hall of Fame Tennis Championships | Newport |
11.07.-17.07. | ATP 250 – SkiStar Swedish Open | Bastad |
11.07.-17.07. | ATP 500 – German Tennis Championships 2016 | Hamburg |
18.07.-24.07. | ATP 250 – Swiss Open Gstaad | Gstaad |
18.07.-24.07. | ATP 250 – Konzum Croatia Open Umag | Umag |
18.07.-24.07. | ATP 500 – Citi Open | Washington D.C. |
18.07.-24.07. | ATP 250 – Generali Open | Kitzbühel |
25.07.-31.07. | ATP 1000 – Rogers Cup | Toronto |
01.08.-07.08. | ATP 250 – BB&T Atlanta Open | Atlanta |
08.08.-14.08. | ATP 250 – Abierto Mexicano Los Cabos | Los Cabos |
15.08.-21.08. | ATP 1000 – Western & Southern Open | Cincinnati |
22.08.-28.08. | ATP 250 – Winston-Salem Open | Winston-Salem |
29.08.-11.09. | Grandslam – US Open | New York |
19.09.-25.09. | ATP 250 – Moselle Open | Metz |
19.09.-25.09. | ATP 250 – St. Petersburg Open | St. Petersburg |
26.09.-02.10. | ATP 250 – Shenzhen Open | Shenzhen |
26.09.-02.10. | ATP 250 – Malaysian Open | Kuala Lumpur |
03.10.-09.10. | ATP 500 – China Open | Beijing |
03.10.-09.10. | ATP 500 – Rakuten Japan Open Tennis | Tokyo |
10.10.-16.10. | ATP 1000 – Shanghai Rolex Masters | Shanghai |
17.10.-23.10. | ATP 250 – Kremlin Cup | Moscow |
17.10.-23.10. | ATP 250 – If Stockholm Open | Stockholm |
17.10.-23.10. | ATP 500 – Valencia Open | Valencia |
24.10.-30.10. | ATP 500 – Swiss Indoors Basel | Basel |
24.10.-30.10. | ATP 500 – Erste Bank Open | Vienna |
31.10.-06.11. | ATP 1000 – BNP Paribas Masters | Paris |
14.11.-20.11. | Barclays ATP World Tour Finals | London |
Grand Slams
The Grand Slams pull the ATP Tour into its biggest focus. There are four Grand Slams on the calendar year, starting with the very early Australian Open which begins in mid-January. Then comes the middle of the year when you get the tough grind of entering the clay court swing of the season and a short burst on the grass. The summer is crammed with the French Open at Roland Garros and then Wimbledon in London. To then round off the Grand Slam season one of the big climaxes to the season as it draws close to an end is the US Open from Flushing Meadows in New York.
These of course are the elite tournaments in the sport, where the real glory can be landed and this is where you see the cream really rise to the top. It takes something special to land a Grand Slam title because of the matches being played over five sets and a bigger draw than will be seen at any regular season tournament. So therefore it takes that extra enduring qualities beyond just sheer stamina to be the last man standing at the end of a Grand Slam, because it is a massive mental battle too.
Roger Federer holds the record for the most Grand Slam titles ever won, with a total of 17 entering into the 2016 season. Rafael Nadal is joint level with Pete Sampras on 14, with Novak Djokovic closing in with 10. You can already take an ante-post price on Novak Djokovic winning all of the individual Grand Slams this season and it looks as if it is going to be really hard for anyone to stop his supreme dominance in the game.
2016 Grand Slam Start Dates
Australian Open – January 18th
French Open – May 22nd
Wimbledon – June 27th
US Open – August 29th
ATP World Tour Masters 1000
The ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events are the most important ranking events on the Tour behind the Grand Slams. There are nine World Tour Masters 1000 events across these season and these offer huge prize monies as well as prestige. These are also bigger tournaments as well with more players entering the fray, so it’s a stop gap between regular season events and the Grand Slams.
Aside from one ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Asia (the Shanghai Rolex Masters) the other eight are split evenly between North America and Europe. There are more ranking points on offer at World Tour Masters events than there are other regular season events and while the finals used to be contested over five sets, they were dialled back in 2007 to the best of three. As a note, Novak Djokovic holds the record for the highest number of ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles won in one year and that is six, earned in a remarkable 2014 season.
ATP World Tour 500 and 250 Events
Aside from the Grand Slam and ATP World Tour Masters 1000 action there are thirteen ATP 500 and thirty-seven ATP 250 events. You will usually find at least one of those running across each week of the season (unless it is Grand Slam or ATP World Tour MAsters 1000 times). The 500 and the 250 refers to the ranking points on offer in the event for the winner.
British ATP Tennis Interest
There is more to British tennis than Andy Murray but of course he takes centre stage will all of achievements in the game. Murray is a Grand Slam champion, the first to bring home the bacon since Fred Perry in the 1930’s. The British number one has won multiple ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events as well and started 2016 ranked second in the World. He was also part of the 2015 Davis Cup side for Great Britain, which did wonders for bringing other British players into the spotlight.
Slovenian-born Aljaz Bedene is now British number 2, the 26 year old starting the year at number 45 in the World Rankings. British stalwarts James Ward and Dan Evans are in the 100’s in the World Rankings, but just outside is the promising youngster Kyle Edmund, the twenty year old just outside of the top 100 at the start of the year. Liam Broady is also a noted star for the future and you are going to be able to track the likes of Ward, Edmund and Broady in qualifiers and the lower-tiered ATP tournaments because of their rankings. Wimbledon is the best time of the season to see the extra attention put on the home-grown talent.
Davis Cup
Along with their regular season event, there is is the Davis Cup running as well against in 2106 and it won’t have passed by many people’s attention last year. That is because Andy Murray dedicates his time to the international competition to help fire Great Britain to the title. That was their first title since 1936 in the competition with Murray playing alongside Kyle Edmund and brother Jamie Murray in the final against Belgium, Great Britain winning 3-1. Great Britain’s Davis Cup title defence starts in early March 2016.
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