Association of Tennis Professionals Announces Year-End Awards at Ceremony in London
This week, along with the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals, the ATP also announced the end of the year awards for tennis players on the tour in a special ceremony to honour top sportsmen. It came as no surprise to any spectator,
critic or fan that the World No.1 and 2, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer respectively, took home the top honours. Here are some of the other plaudits awarded.
Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award: Rafael Nadal
For the past six years, Swiss phenomenon Roger ‘the Swiss Maestro’ Federer has taken away this award away consecutively. However, this time round in 2010, World No. 1 Rafael ‘Rafa’ Nadal was given the honour. It seems to have been
a unanimous decision made by the players, given that Rafael Nadal is known all over the courts as gracious in both victories and defeats. He lives up to the lines by Rudyard Kipling, engraved on the Wimbledon courts at the All-England Club: “if you can meet
with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.”
However, some sources have expressed slight doubts about Nadal being given the award. This is because there have been certain rumours about the player receiving guidance during tennis matches. If this grand scheme is actually considered,
Toni Nadal and his advice for his protégé is not something that will be able to taint Rafa’s reputation, legacy or record.
Most Improved Player of the Year: Andrey Golubev
While Czech No. 1 Tomas Berdych may have seemed a shoo-in for this award four months ago, a lot has changed since then. Berdych tripped at the end of the season to leave room open for 23 year old Andrey Golubev, who has been making
waves. The player has emerged from Kazakhstan, and jumped 100 spots on the ATP Tour rankings to go to a career-high World No. 33 last month. He is expected to use his potential and climb further up the charts over the next few months.
Newcomer of the Year: Tobias Kamke
The Germans have dominated this award three times in the last seven years, and this year was no exception. 24 year old Tobias Kamke from Lubeck, Germany earned the Newcomer Award after he jumped a massive number of spots from World
No. 254 to No. 67. This kind of improvement is almost entirely unheard of, and is a great achievement on part of the player.
Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year: Rohan Bopanna and Aisam ul Haq Qureshi
Indian Rohan Bopanna and Pakistani Aisam ul Haq Qureshi, collectively dubbed the ‘Indo-Pak Express’, have been making waves all over the tennis world with their performance at the 2010 US Open tournament. Apart from reaching the
finals of the event against top seeds Mike and Bob Bryan, they also drew a lot of positive media attention for their superhuman efforts to put together a working relationship between their countries, which have been at odds for decades. Their efforts and slogan,
“Stop War, Start Tennis” have earned them the prestigious Arthur Ashe award.
ATPWorldTour.com Fans' Favourite (singles): Roger Federer
World Number 2 Roger Federer took away 47 percent of the vote, surpassing both Rafa and Novak ‘Nole’ Djokovic to win the award. He was, and remains the fans' favourite by a wide margin.
ATPWorldTour.com Fans' Favourite (doubles): Bob Bryan & Mike Bryan
The Bryan brothers, famous for their chest bumps, took away 44 percent of the vote for this award. This came as no surprise, seeing as the brothers from America are the World No. 1 doubles team.
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