Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest Chinese city by population and the largest city proper by population in the world. It is one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of China, with a population of more than 24 million as of 2014. It is a global financial center, and a transport hub with the world's busiest container port. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China, Shanghai sits on the south edge of the mouth of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea.

For centuries a major administrative, shipping, and trading town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to European recognition of its favorable port location and economic potential. The city was one of five forced open to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the First Opium War while the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1844 Treaty of Whampoa allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became the undisputed financial hub of the Asia Pacific in the 1930s. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, trade was reoriented to focus on socialist countries, and the city's global influence declined. In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city.

Shanghai Masters (tennis)

The Shanghai Masters (also known as Shanghai Rolex Masters for sponsorship reasons) is a professional men's tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts, and held annually in early October at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena in the Minhang District of Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The Shanghai Masters is chronologically the eighth out of the nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour season, and is the only one not played in Europe or North America.

Organization

Competition format

Matches in the singles and doubles main draws are played over eight days, from one Sunday to the next (in 2013, competition was held from October 6 to October 13, and this year competition will be held from October 11 to October 18). Qualifying matches for the singles main draw will be played in the week-end preceding the first complete week of competition (in 2012, on Saturday, October 5 and Sunday, October 6).

The singles main draw features 56 different players (six rounds of play to the title for all competitors but the top 8 seeds), including 44 or 45 direct acceptances, 7 qualifiers, 4 wild cards, and 1 eventual special exempt. The singles qualifying draw features 28 different players (two rounds of play to qualification for all competitors including the 14 seeds), with 24 direct acceptances, and 4 wild cards. The doubles draw, finally, features 24 different teams (five rounds of play to the title for all competitors but the 8 seeded teams), including 22 direct acceptances (16 in advance, 6 on-site), and 2 wild cards.

Andy Murray

Andrew Barron "Andy" Murray OBE (born 15 May 1987) is a Scottish professional tennis player, currently ranked World No. 2. He started playing tennis at the age of three, entered his first competitive tournament at age five and was playing league tennis by the time he was eight. He has reached at least the quarter-finals of all Grand Slam tournaments he has participated in since 2011, with the exception of the 2015 US Open. When he was 15, he moved to Barcelona to train at the Sánchez-Casal Academy. He won the junior US Open in 2004 and turned professional the following year. Murray has been ranked as British No. 1 since 27 February 2006. He achieved a top-10 ranking by the ATP for the first time on 16 April 2007, and reached a career peak of World No. 2 on 17 August 2009.

Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic (Serbian: Novak Đoković / Новак Ђоковић, pronounced [nôʋaːk d͡ʑôːkoʋit͡ɕ]; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player who is currently ranked world No. 1 in men's singles tennis by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). He is generally considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He is coached by former Slovak tennis player Marián Vajda and former German tennis player and six-time Grand Slam champion Boris Becker.

Djokovic has won 11 Grand Slam singles titles which is ranked fourth in the open era tied with Björn Borg and has held the No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings for a total of 186 weeks. By winning three Grand Slam titles in 2011, Djokovic became the sixth male player to win three Grand Slams in a calendar year. He repeated this achievement in 2015. In Grand Slams, Djokovic has won an all-time record six Australian Open titles (tied with Roy Emerson), including an open era record of three consecutive titles from 2011–2013 (the first and only player to achieve this). He has also won three Wimbledon titles and two US Open titles.

Master

Master, masters and the Master may refer to:

Ranks and titles