The annual ATP Finals is a truly exclusive event with its doors open only to the top eight players based on their ATP ranking every season. It began life as the Masters and was hosted first by Tokyo. The cities of Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne, Stockholm, and Houston took turns hosting the event before it made the move to Madison Square Garden in New York. The city of New York played host from 1977 to 1989.
In 1990, the Masters was renamed the ATP Tour World Championships and moved to Europe. Frankfurt and Hannover took turns hosting the event until 1999. In 2000, the event went through another rebranding effort, emerging as the Tennis Masters Cup and was held in Lisbon, Sydney, Houston and Shanghai.
The O2 Arena in London took over as the host in 2009, with the event marking its 50th anniversary in 2020. Turin took over as host city in 2021. Stan Smith won the inaugural edition in 1970. Nastase was the first to win multiple titles, followed by John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras, who dominated the event until 1999.
