Chapter 740 Year-end Ranking
The 2014 season has come to an end.
A crazy and chaotic season, a turbulent and wild season, a magical and weird season, and it finally ended in a crazy and chaotic way.
In a way, this is consistent from beginning to end.
While the year-end finals are in progress, emotions such as amazement, complaints, complaints, astonishment, anger, ridicule, disgust, and contempt fill the heart.
I am extremely annoyed, yet I am also very disappointed with you.
But when the lights at the O2 Arena went out, the music ended, and the crowd dispersed, and everything returned to calm, I looked at the dome slowly dimming in the night, and a feeling of reluctance to leave quietly grew.
Looking back, I have unknowingly become a witness of history.
Looking back on this incredible season, I can't help but smile faintly, with mixed feelings. This is destined to be a special season.
At this point, following the WTA, all ATP events in 2014 have ended, with only the Davis Cup final held by the ITF set to take place in two weeks, with the Swiss team facing the French team. The next meeting of other events will have to be two months later, and all the noise has died down.
At the same time, the world rankings and championship points list were officially merged into one, and the year-end world rankings were released.
To say there are surprises, there are actually no surprises; to say there are no surprises, there are actually quite a few surprises.
First, Djokovic.
Second, Federer.
Third, Nadal.
Fourth, Wawrinka.
Fifth, Murray.
Top five, is this a standard outcome? After a whole season of struggle and ups and downs, Murray finally made it back to the top five in the year-end world rankings, second only to Wawrinka.
Everyone is discussing that the "Big Four Era" has completely collapsed, but the year-end world rankings prove that the most stable, outstanding and powerful overall performances are still "those four old guys" plus an "old face that suddenly appeared but is not young". The boiling chaos seems like a dream.
If we ignore the list of Grand Slam and Masters titles and only look at the world rankings, 2014 does not seem to be particularly different from previous years.
This is no surprise.
Sixth place, Berdych.
Seventh place, Kei Nishikori.
Eighth place, Raonic.
Ninth place, Gao Wen.
Tenth place, Ferrer.
In the second half of the world's top ten, a surprise appeared, and it was a huge surprise -
Kei Nishikori, Gawain, Milos Raonic.
All three players finished in the top 10 of the year-end world rankings for the first time in their careers, replacing Del Potro, Tsonga and Richard-Gasquet, who were in the year-end rankings last year. All three players have had very limited time on the court this season due to injuries.
Among them, Kei Nishikori and Kobe are the Asian representatives. For the first time in history, Asian male players are among the top ten at the end of the year, let alone two.
At the same time, Gao Wen and Raonic are representatives of the "post-90s" generation. This is also the first time in history that two young players appear at once.
The most incredible thing, of course, is Gawain, who created countless miracles and wrote countless pieces of history.
Before the year-end finals, he was temporarily ranked tenth in the world, but with the last victory in the group stage, he directly earned 200 points, which also allowed Gawain to successfully overtake Ferrer.
It is worth mentioning that Raonic's final score was 4220, and Gawain's final score was 4210. The difference was only a slight ten points.
Just a little bit, just a little bit, Gao Wen would be able to end the season in the top eight in the world, but... there is no need to expect so much, because "ninth in the world" is already shocking enough. When the end-of-year world ranking list came out, it caused an uproar.
A championship proves an outstanding performance in a tournament. For example, Tsonga won the Miami Masters this year, which was also a breakthrough in his career.
The year-end world rankings prove the stability and excellence of many events - in short, relying solely on dark horse performances is far from enough.
From New York to Paris to London, and finally to the world rankings, Gao Wen has undoubtedly become the hottest newcomer in 2014 amidst a chorus of astonishment.
Now, looking back at this year full of uncertainties, if we have to name the biggest winner, it would probably be... Nike.
At the beginning, Nike defeated Adidas and signed Gao Wen in a swift and decisive manner. Although the terms of the contract have not been revealed, industry insiders have already smelled many clues and have been questioning whether Nike is acting too hastily or impulsively.
In less than three months, all the doubts were silenced and replaced by praise and admiration, with many saying that this was the wisest and most far-sighted decision Nike made throughout the year, and that Adidas once again missed the opportunity to overtake Nike after Bouchard.
Nike, smiling at the wind and clouds.
However, this is still not all.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
Every year, ATP conducts a series of official award selections to reward players for their outstanding performance throughout the year. The award selection method is also very professional, and the selection methods for different awards are different, ensuring that the awards can reflect the original intention of setting them up as much as possible.
Player/Team of the Year.
This award will not be selected, but will be directly awarded to the world's number one at the end of the year, because the year-end world ranking is the best summary of the whole year.
Djokovic and the Bryan brothers received the award respectively.
Best Improvement of the Year Award, Best Comeback of the Year Award, Best Newcomer of the Year Award.
All three awards are voted for by professional players registered with the ATP. The voting will go through two rounds of screening. The first round will screen the nominees; and then the second round will be held to determine the final winner.
The voting is done entirely by the professional players themselves, without any public relations or canvassing. The players are not even sure whether they will be nominated. It all depends on their impressions from the whole year's journey. Whether it is nomination or winning, it all comes from the players' own views and opinions.
It is precisely because of this that the weight and significance of these three awards are even more important, because they represent the views of colleagues. They fight side by side, they advance and retreat together, they are both opponents on the court and companions in the same industry, and their opinions are more valuable.
Best Improvement of the Year Award, Gao Wen.
Comeback of the Year Award: David Goffin.
Newcomer of the Year Award, Gao Wen.
Overall, there was not much suspense about the three awards, and the final winners received a huge number of votes, leaving a direct gap between them and the second place.
Needless to say, it is what everyone expected.
But what is really worth mentioning is a screenshot that has been widely circulated on social networks:
In early August, the front page of the ATP official homepage reported that the two players made history by winning fifteen consecutive Challenger Tournaments in both Europe and North America and won the triple crown.
These two players are Goffin and Gawain, who performed best in the second half of the year.
And now, both players have become important members of the ATP's year-end awards ceremony. It has to be said that the ATP seems to have seen the signs early on.
But... what is even more curious is, which god was so bored that he left the ATP official screenshots? Did he foresee it at that time? (End of this chapter)