Nominees for the 2019 ATP Awards were announced earlier this week. The Comeback Player of the Year, Most Improved Player of the Year, and Newcomer of the Year, and Sportsmanship Award will all be voted on by the players and will be awarded at the 2020 ATP Cup.
Andy Murray, Andrey Rublev, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Stan Wawrinka are the nominees for Comeback Player of the Year.
Most Improved Player of the Year will go to either Felix Auger-Aliassime, Matteo Berrettini, Daniil Medvedev, or Stefanos Tsitsipas.
A long list of Newcomer of the Year contenders features Auger-Aliassime, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Miomir Kecmanovic, Corentin Moutet, Alexei Popyrin, Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner, and Mikael Ymer.
Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Dominic Thiem, and Diego Schwartzman are the nominees for the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award.
Players will also vote on the Tournament of the Year in three different categories: Masters 1000, 500, and 250. Coaches will vote on the Coach of the Year and fans will vote on the ATPTour.com Fans’ Favorite (both singles and doubles). The ATP will determine the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award.
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who ya got?
Murray, Medvedev, FAA, Nadal lol okay bit biased on the last one, and Federer will probably win the last one anyway (AHEM) sorry for obvious reasons lol ….
no way for Murray. but he should win it next year. (or Delpo)
Murray, Medvedev, Sinner, Thiem
Its always Fed for sportsmanship award.
PK Lol true , for obvious reasons ….
Alison I agree that Fed will be the most like winner of the sportsmanship-of-the-year award. He always does. But what kind of obvious reasons do you have in mind? I’m not trying to be snarky. I genuinely want to know why the players always gravitate towards Fed. But I cannot come up with any obvious reasons. There are many other players who deserve it just as much as Fed. However, I never have it much thought because I’m not really interested in these awards. Unlike the ear-end No.1 trophy they aren’t founded on objective facts and and unbiased evaluations.
Ahh littlefoot, so you have triggered a discussion and yes I agree and would ask the same question to Allison.. Obvious reasons ?
While Fed is no less deserving, its kinda odd when one person gets the award by default for years in a row. I am sure a lot of players consider Rafa is very nice, humble and sportsmanlike on and off the court. I also agree its not just a Rafa or Fed question.
For the one speech that Medvedev gave in the US Open, whats more deserving of a sportsmanship recognition. Just saying.
But I also noticed its not just tennis, its a lot more off the court as well. While Rafa is doing great work with his academies and his foundation, I would be inclined to think the academies are profitable ventures while greatly contributing towards society and development. And when you hear of Feds work, its mostly schools for the under priveleged in Africa.
What obvious reasons make the players gravitate towards Fed. Maybe Allison can shed some light 🙂
PK, thanks for adding your thoughts ☺
It’s an interesting question if off-court activities should be considered, too.
And, yes, I agree that this topic isn’t necessarily a Rafa vs. Roger topic. As Augusta has pointed out, Rafa has won the award, too – twice as far as I remember. So, why are the players who vote gravitating towards the GOAT candidates? Hast Novak ever won the trophy?
I cannot believe that players who are not named Roger or Rafa don’t deserve the price as well. And how does the voting procedure work anyway? Is it a secret who votes for whom? As I said, I have never given this topic many thoughts but I’m a bit baffled by the statistics.
The ATP website says: “Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award: The player who, throughout the year, conducted himself at the highest level of professionalism and integrity, who competed with his fellow players with the utmost spirit of fairness and who promoted the game through his off-court activities.”
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/atp-awards-2019-categories-nominees
So, offcourt activities are indeed important for winning the award. Fine with me, but it seems to me that this dies exclude the nice and sportsman-like journeymen – simply because they are so busy with making a living and pay the bills. They cannot afford to indulge in their own charities. It’s well known that pro tennis suffers from a very lopsided and top-heavy distribution of income.
Rafa received the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award in 2018. The 2018 ATP awards were sponsored by Moët & Chandon, Fed’s sponsor. The ATP had to find a new sponsor this year…
augusta08 / Littlefoot, PK im not been a sarcastic either, and i have nothing against Federer, everybody of old knows im not some Federer hater, just because im a Rafa fan, i just think hes the golden boy of tennis, always has been always will be, its quite that simple ….
Haha Allison, I didnt quite catch the sarcasm. Missed reading your first comment. For a moment I thought you were being a Fedfan 🙂
Federer and Nadal have been the biggest names in tennis for more than a decade and have most certainly spearheaded promoting the sport to new levels. Also off the court with their foundations and recognition, their contribution has sustained.
Novak for his part also has a foundation I am sure is doing great work too. But for some reason I think there is a lot more coverage on Fed and Rafa.
To LittleFoot’s point, one has to wonder how much off the court, sportsmanship can extend to. Stefan Edberg, the name that the award carries was the nicest guy on tour, noticeably when most were professional and possibly cold. but I guess like him, Rafa and Fed are not just nice and fair towards the opponent but also to the ball boys, the organisers, sponsors, the fans and it extends to their presence and audience on extended events like exhibitions and promotional events. The weight that their names carry at the moment for tennis’s global presence and popularity is tough to be replaced and carried forward.
Alison Hodge AT 11:14 PM,
English-speaking TV commentators & professional writers are obviously being paid well for their continuous pro-Fed & anti-Rafa campaign. I mute commentators because they are unbearable. Fortunately, sometimes it’s possible to watch matches online (on Tennis TV) without commentary.
Like the rest of you I can only speculate, but I suspect ‘promotion of tennis’ weighs very heavily with the players and Federer is and has been the most popular player over many years now. He’s also popular with the players in general. He’s always been “one of the boys” in the locker room or so it’s said – not like I have personal experience with that!
Ramara, so your theory is that the majority of the players tend to pick Fed for the sportsmanship-of-the-year award because they think it’s good for the overall promotion of tennis to pick the best known tennis player of the universe? Since I highly doubt that the players are somehow forced to elect Fed year after year (with a sprinkle of Rafa once in a blue moon), you could be on to something. Tennis wouldn’t be in the news if a very nice and very sportsman-like journeyman, who is virtually unknown outside of tennis afionado circles, would be named sportsman-of-the-year.
PK Thanks for the reply dear, its like augusta08 says , you can here the yucky fawning in the commies voices when they talk about Federer, the female ones are the worst Virginia Wade, and Annabelle Croft, Sue Barker urgh, all have obvious distain in their voices when they discuss the possibility of Rafa and Novak surpassing their golden boy, two guys with unconventional game styles etc, it was clear at one point that they were all for Novak beating Rafa at the GS because he was saving Roger been surpassed by Rafa, but now that Novak is also getting close, they have also turned on him too, as the saying goes be careful what you wish for lol ….
augusta08 / Littlefoot, i tried to post this earlier, and for some reason i couldnt get it through, anyway thanks both for the feedback, im not be sarcastic either, im a Rafa fan, but anybody knows im no Federer hater, i just think that Federer is the tennis darling, you can here it in the commies voices, especially female ones Virinia Wade, Annabelle Croft, Sue Barker their fawning is yucky urgh, they dont want two guys with unconventional games overtaking their golden boy, for a while they were all over Novak because he was protecting Federer from Rafa, now that Novak is also getting close, they are now turning on him too, as they saying goes be careful what you wish for lol ….
why are my posts not getting through on this forum ?
Alison, it happens to me, too. I estimate that about 20% of my comments get lost in cyberspace for obscure reasons 🙁
MeThinks that’s quite a lot.
Also, I never get notified when someone replied to one of my comments, although I always select to get a notification. Therefore I don’t always reply since it’s quite tedious to check all threads manually for answers.
Tenngrand is a great tennis site as far as the content and the commenters are concerned, but not all technical features work well.
Littlefoot true that, i sent a long post twice that didnt get through, so i cant be bothered to do it again * SIGH * ….