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Former players from the 1980s involved in the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals were welcomed to The O2, venue of the season finale in London this week. Stefan Edberg, the 1989 champion, and former World No. 1 Mats Wilander took part in this week’s celebrations, while those working on-site: five-time former titlist Ivan Lendl, who reached nine straight year-end finals, and three-time winners John McEnroe and Boris Becker, were also honoured.

More than 30 players, who featured in the year-end singles and doubles championships from the 1980s, travelled to the English capital as part of The Finals Club, an initiative established in 2015 that welcomes some of the game’s former greats from the past 45 years return to the season-ending tournament, where they will be able to reconnect with the sport, their peers, as well as the world’s best players of today.

Those accepting the ATP World Tour’s invitation this year also included Pieter Aldrich, Darren Cahill, Sergio Casal, Pat Cash, Michael Chang, Marty Davis, Steve Denton, Kelly Evernden, John Fitzgerald, Ken Flach, John Fitzgerald, Peter Fleming, Brad Gilbert, Andres Gomez, Heinz Gunthardt, Jakob Hlasek, Anders Jarryd, Carlos Kirmayr, Johan Kriek, Patrick McEnroe, Peter McNamara, Paul McNamee, Cassio Motta, Joakim Nystrom, Hans Simonsson, Tomas Smid, Henrik Sundstrom, Balazs Taroczy and Danie Visser.

Read: Lendl Reflects On 1980s Masters Tennis, Helping Murray

Read: Top 10 New York Season Finale Matches (1977-1989)

Watch & Read: The Greatest Final Ever?: Becker v Lendl, 1988

The group took a boat ride from the London Eye to The O2, then enjoyed a Moët & Chandon toast and were welcomed by Chris Kermode, the ATP Executive Chairman and President. Having been presented with personalised Moët & Chandon bottles, the former players enjoyed a sumptuous lunch, prior to taking their seats courtside for the 2016 singles and doubles title matches at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

While players from the 1990s and 2000s will be celebrated in future years, The Finals Club this year has been highlighted by the renaming of Groups A and B for both the singles and doubles in honour of players that made an indelible mark on the tournament in the 1980s. In singles, Group A was named after McEnroe and Group B after Lendl. The doubles groups were named Fleming/McEnroe and Edberg/Jarryd, after Fleming and John McEnroe - the 1978-84 doubles titlists - and Edberg and Jarryd, who won the year-end championships in 1985 and 1986.

Missed a moment of the action from Sunday at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals? Here’s your executive summary.

1) Murray Crowned King Of London, Finishes Year At No. 1

In the championship match that all tennis fans were waiting for, Andy Murray defeated four-time defending champion Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-4 to win the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and finish 2016 as year-end World No. 1. He is the first British player to be crowned champion at the season-ending finale.

Murray is the 17th player to finish atop the Emirates ATP Rankings. He wrapped up 2016 with five straight titles and 24 consecutive victories, in addition to pocketing a cool $2,391,000 for his efforts at The O2.

Djokovic was looking for his sixth title at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Had he defeated Murray, the Serbian would have finished at the top of the Emirates ATP Rankings for a third consecutive year. Read Match Report

2) Murray’s Pinpoint Aim

Murray created winners from nearly impossible angles throughout the match, frequently responding to perfect plays from Djokovic with brilliant shotmaking of his own.


3) Quote Of The Day

“We should all let Andy enjoy this a little bit. Don't ask him questions about next season. He deserves to be in the moment and to really take everything in what he achieved, as well as his team and his wife. She has to get some credit. She gave birth this year [and] he has traveled all over the place. I know how it is with my wife, Jelena, what she had to go through as a mother back home with a little baby. So, Kim, well done. She's maybe made even a bigger effort than Andy.” – Djokovic, praising Murray and those around him for their efforts this year.

4) Celebs Galore

Plenty of famous faces made it a point not to miss the hottest ticket in town, including actor Kevin Spacey, soccer star Gerard Piqué and singer Sam Smith. View Celebrity Gallery

5) Kontinen/Peers Capture Doubles Title

Fifth seeds Henri Kontinen/John Peers completed their dream finish to 2016 with a 2-6, 6-1, 10-8 victory over seventh seeds Raven Klaasen/Rajeev Ram. They finished the year on a 10-match win streak, having won their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title earlier this month at the BNP Paribas Masters. Kontinen/Peers won five titles throughout 2016, including crowns in Brisbane, Munich and Hamburg. Read Match Report

The numbers behind the 2016 season finale
The 2016 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals culminated in a historic title match between the top two ranked players in the world, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, marking the first time in history that the year-end No.1 Emirates ATP Ranking was on the line for both finalists in the final match of the season.

The dramatic finish to the season, which saw Murray defeat Djokovic 6-3, 6-4 in front of a 17,800 capacity crowd to become only the 17th player in history to finish as year-end world No.1 (since 1973), capped off another bumper edition of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at The O2.

This year’s event attracted a total attendance of 252,481, meaning the tournament has welcomed in excess of 250,000 fans each year to The O2 arena since 2009. The 2016 edition saw the season finale attract its two millionth fan since moving to London.

The tournament, aired on 59 broadcasters in 198 territories, attracted record audiences worldwide. Global viewership on television is forecast to come in at approximately 111 million, a 14% increase on 2015. On digital, broadcast streams on Tennis TV, the ATP’s official live streaming site, hit 7.5 million, a 4.1 % increase on the previous year. Meanwhile the ATP’s websites registered 19.8 million page impressions, a 10.7% increase from 2015.

In the UK, Murray’s dramatic semi-final win against Canadian Milos Raonic drew a peak audience on the BBC of 4.5 million, the highest viewership of any Barclays ATP World Tour Finals match on BBC since the tournament moved to London in 2009. The 5-7, 7-6(5), 7-6(9) encounter, in which Murray saved a match point, was also the longest best-of-three set match in the history of the tournament, at three hours and 38 minutes. The final on Sunday evening also drew a peak audience of 4.5 million on the BBC.

Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman & President, said: “It was unprecedented to have the No.1 ranking come down to the last match of the season for both players, providing a truly dramatic finish to a historic tournament. The O2 arena once again provided the perfect stage for such a thrilling finale to the 2016 ATP World Tour season.”

History was also made in the doubles event. While Henri Kontinen and John Peers captured their first season finale crown, it was Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares that snatched the year-end No.1 doubles team ranking, presented by Emirates. It marked the first time that two brothers, Andy and Jamie, were to finish atop the singles and doubles rankings respectively.

The tournament also launched a new partnership between the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and Unicef, the world’s leading children’s organisation. This included the launch of the Super 8, in which the world’s best eight qualified tennis players came together at the season-ending finale on a mission to help Unicef raise awareness and vital funds to keep children safe. The partnership raised more than US$250,000 that will help Unicef provide life-saving food, vaccines, education and protection for children in danger around the world.

The 2016 tournament also attracted a number of celebrities to The O2 across the eight days of competition. Among those to attend were Jose Mourinho, Gerard Pique, Jude Law, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Spacey, Hugh Grant, Clive Owen, and David Beckham.

The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals has a rich history dating back to the birth of the Masters in Tokyo in 1970. The tournament will be held at The O2 in London through 2018.

BY THE NUMBERS:
• 111,000,000 – estimated global TV viewership of the 2016 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
• 82,600,000 – number of impressions from social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and MyATP now on Vixlet.
• 70,700,000 – number of impressions of #ATPFinals on Twitter.
• 39,900,000 – number of page impressions on ATP digital media platforms, including ATPWorldTour.com, BarclaysATPWorldTourFinals.com, mobile apps, and MyATP now on Vixlet.
• 7,500,000 – amount of prize money (US$) on offer at the 2016 season finale.
• 4,500,000 – peak audience on BBC1 during Andy Murray’s semi-final victory over Milos Raonic.
• 2,391,000 – amount of prize money (US$) that Andy Murray won as undefeated champion.
• 2,063,623 – cumulative attendance at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals since 2009.
• 351,984 – number of people to pass through The O2 site in 2016, including the non-ticketed Fan Zone, practice court, restaurants and bars, during the eight days of the tournament.
• 252,481 – attendance at the 2016 event.
• 250,000 – amount of money (US$) raised through the partnership between Unicef and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, in aid of Unicef’s work to help protect children in danger around the world.
• 24 – number of consecutive matches won by World No.1 Andy Murray in finishing the season with titles in Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna, Paris, and London.
• 10 – number of nations represented in the year-end Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings, the first time this has occurred since the inception of the rankings in 1973.