The ATP Tennis Masters series is also called the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and is the third tier of ATP tennis tournaments after Grand Slam Tennis and the ATP World Tour Finals. Latest information on the Tennis Masters here.
Known to be a very important tennis series, the ATP Tennis Masters tournaments award 1000 points to the winners, well above some of the other competitions which offer 250 and 500 points respectively. Currently all these Tennis Masters tournaments are played in a best of three sets format.
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have each won 30 Tennis Masters tournaments apiece, which is the most won by any player in the history of the competitions. Djokovic has even won eight of the nine Masters tournaments that are being played, a record no other player has managed to emulate.
The nine Masters series tournaments include the Indian Wells Masters (or the BNP Paribas Open) that is played in Indian Wells, California, Miami Open in Florida, Monte-Carlo Masters in France, Madrid Open in Madrid, Spain, Italian Open in Rome, Italy, Canadian Open in Montreal & Toronto, Canada, Cincinnati Masters in Ohio, USA, Shanghai Masters in Shanghai, China and the Paris Masters in Paris, France.
Of these competitions, the Indian Wells Masters and the Miami Open are the biggest of the lot, with 96 players featuring in the singles draw. The rest of the Masters tournaments see 56 players in the main draw except the Paris Masters where 48 players participate in the singles competition.
The ATP Masters series has been called by various names in the past. It started off in 1990 as the ATP Championship Series, Single Week before changing its name to the ATP Super Nine in 1996.
From 2000 onward, it was called the Tennis Masters Series before becoming the ATP Masters Series and is now called the ATP World Tour Masters 1000. The 1000 here signifies the points that the winner of the tournament earns in the tournament. Grand Slam winners earn 2000 points.
The ATP Masters 1000 series tournaments are some of the most followed in the world, second only to the Grand Slam competitions.