John McEnroe and Stefan Edberg: First two participants of ATP Champions Tour 2012 – Tennis News
The legends of tennis once again will lock horns in March, 2012 in the ATP Champions Tour tournament. The tournament will be hosted in the most beautiful capital city of Sweden, Stockholm. This exciting tournament will feature the hall of famers from the
field of tennis and will commence on 13th March. Sweden will host this eight man contest that will last for three days and would feature legendry former world champions.
The criterion for qualification in the tournament requires that each player should have been either on a Davis Cup-winning team or Grand Slam singles finalist or world number 1 before their retirement from professional tennis career.
All contestants are divided into the group of four and each player will play at-least three matches in a round-robin format. The top performers of both groups will get face to face in the final of ATP Champions Tour that will be played on Friday, March 16th.
First two players to confirm their participation in the tournament are the two former world number 1’s John McEnroe and Stefan Edberg. These two players will be accompanied by six other men that will be announced shortly.
American International, McEnroe, won seven Grand Slams that included three Wimbledon and four US Open titles. He also won nine men’s doubles and one mix double Grand Slam titles. He was famous for the same reason as Andy Roddick is now days - Rocket Serves.
Many coaches used to show his videos in slow motion to the youngster so that they could learn from him.
Swedish, Stefan Edberg, will feature in this tournament as the local favourite. He won six single’s Grand Slam titles and three doubles Grand Slam titles. He was the major proponent of serve-and-volley style of tennis who bamboozled his opponents with his
unorthodox style of play.
Stockholm will host this tournament for the first time and tournament director, Per Hjertquist, was extremely delighted and thrilled with this advancement. He said “It is fantastic news that the ATP Champions Tour is coming to Stockholm. Players like John
McEnroe and Stefan Edberg are global stars and I am sure that the people of Sweden will be happy to see them in March”.
Tournament CEO, Jan Felgate, said “The players on our Tour are popular wherever they go and I know that they will enjoy playing in Sweden, which has such a rich tennis tradition”.
McEnroe and Edberg started playing ATP Challengers tour in 1997 and 2008 respectively. American has won this tournament four times and Swedish International is in search for his first victory in this tournament. Both players are still fit and delight to
watch. They have not lost their charm and are as good as they were in their early 20’s.
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