British Tennis - Lawn Tennis Association

The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is the climax of the men's professional tennis season and sees the top eight singles players and the top eight doubles teams fight it out to be crowned ATP World Tour Champions.

Initially, the players are split into round-robin groups of four with the top two players or teams in each group progressing to the semi-finals and subsequent final.

The end of season finale was staged in London for the first time in 2009 with Nikolay Davydenko winning the singles title while Bob and Mike Bryan picked up the doubles title.

In 2010 the dream semi-final line up was realised and Roger Federer beat Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal defeated Andy Murray in an epic three setter. In the final it was the Swiss world No.2 who conquered his Spanish opponent to win his fifth title at the event.

In 2011 Roger Federer defended his title, beating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in three sets to claim his sixth end of year Masters crown.

The first year-end championship for men's professional tennis, known as the Masters, was held in 1970.

Tokyo played host to this inaugural event and was followed as a venue by Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne, Stockholm and Houston before it finally settled at New York's Madison Square Garden between 1977 and 1989.

In 1990, the event became known as the ATP World Tour Championship and was held in the German cities of Frankfurt and Hannover until 1999.

The Tennis Masters Cup was then born in 2000 and was competed for in Lisbon, Sydney, Houston and Shanghai. 

Now named the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, the event has set an attendance record for an indoor event with 256,830 people streaming through the doors at the O2 in 2009 and a record daily crowd of 35,000 reached on the opening day and evening session combined.