The ATP Tour (known as ATP World Tour between January 2009 and December 2018) is the sole worldwide top-tier

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

tour for men organized by the

Association of Tennis Professionals The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is the governing body of the men's professional tennis circuits – the ATP Tour and the ATP Challenger Tour. It was formed in September 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to p ...

(ATP) founded in 1990 that replaced the earlier dual Grand Prix Circuit and WCT Circuit. The second-tier tour is the

ATP Challenger Tour The ATP Challenger Tour (known until the end of 2008 as the ATP Challenger Series) is a series of international men's professional tennis tournaments. It was founded in 1976 as a replacement for the ILTF Satellite Circuit (founded in 1971) as ...

and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organisation is the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

ATP Tour tournaments

The ATP Tour comprises ATP Masters 1000, ATP 500, and

ATP 250 The ATP 250 tournaments (previously known as the ''ATP World Tour 250'' tournaments, ''ATP International Series'', and ''ATP World Series'') are the lowest tier of annual men's tennis tournaments on the main ATP Tour, after the four Grand Slam (t ...

and the United Cup. The ATP also oversees the

, a level below the ATP Tour, and the ATP Champions Tour for seniors. The Grand Slam tournaments, the Olympic tennis tournament, the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

, and the entry-level ITF World Tennis Tour do not fall under the purview of the ATP, but are overseen by the

International Tennis Federation The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. there are 211 nat ...

(ITF) instead and the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

(IOC) for the Olympics. In these events, however, ATP ranking points are awarded, with the exception of the Olympics. Players and doubles teams with the most ranking points (collected during the calendar year) play in the season-ending

ATP Finals The ATP Finals is the season-ending championship of the ATP Tour. It is the most significant tennis event in the men's annual calendar after the four majors, as it features the top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams based on their ...

, which, from 2000–2008, was run jointly with the ITF. The top eight 20-and-under players may compete in the season-ending

Next Generation ATP Finals The Next Gen ATP Finals is an annual men's professional exhibition tennis tournament organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for the best players of the season aged 20 years old or younger. The event debuted in 2017 at the PalaL ...

if they do not qualify for the ATP Finals. The details of the professional tennis tour are:

ATP rankings

ATP publishes weekly rankings of professional players.

Current rankings

Records

References

External links