page_title: 2008 Tennis Masters Cup
section_title: Singles
hierarchical_section_title: 2008 Tennis Masters Cup / Qualification / Singles
caption_attribution_description: Српски / srpski: sr:Новак Ђоковић на балкону Скупштине града Београда, са победничким пехаром Отвореног првенства Аустралије. Снимљено 2. фебруара 2008. / sr:Novak Đoković na balkonu Skupštine grada Beograda, sa pobedničkim peharom Otvorenog prvenstva Australije. Snimljeno 2. februara 2008. English: en:Novak Đoković on the balcony of City of Belgrade Assembly, holding his Australian Open trophy. (cropped)
context_page_description: The 2008 Tennis Masters Cup was a men's tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts. It was the 39th edition of the year-end singles championships, the 34th edition of the year-end doubles championships, and part of the 2008 ATP Tour. It took place at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena in Shanghai, China, from November 9 through November 16, 2008.
  Association of Tennis Professionals No. 3 Novak Djokovic of Serbia won his first year-end championships title in the singles event, defeating ATP No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia in the final 6–1, 7–5. Four-time winner, two-time defending champion Roger Federer was defeated in the round robin stage of the event for the first time in seven consecutive appearances. Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjić of Serbia won the doubles event 7–6, 6–2 over Americans Bob and Mike Bryan in the final for their first year-end championships doubles title together. With the win, they clinched the year-end No. 1 spot for the first time together. Nestor successfully defended his 2007 Tennis Masters Cup title with his new partner Zimonjić, while the other defending champion, Mark Knowles, lost in the round robin, with Mahesh Bhupathi.
context_section_description: On July 9 – after the 2008 Wimbledon Championships – the first three players to qualify for the 2008 year-end championships were selected: ATP No. 2 Rafael Nadal of Spain, World No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland and third-ranked Novak Djokovic of Serbia. These players, who held the top three spots of the ATP rankings during the whole year, secured their fourth, seventh and second appearance respectively in the season's finale.
  Rafael Nadal, who reached his first hard courts Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open (lost to Tsonga), qualified after winning the French Open for a fourth consecutive time, matching Björn Borg's record performance from 1978 to 1981. He broke Roger Federer's streak of five consecutive titles in Wimbledon as he defeated the Swiss 6–4, 6–4, 6–7, 6–7, 9–7, in a four-hour-forty-eight-minute-long final – the longest championship match in Wimbledon's history – to become the first tennis player to complete the Roland-Garros/Wimbledon double since Borg. In addition to the two Grand Slam titles, Nadal had also, at the time of his qualification, reached two finals in Chennai (lost to Youhzny) and Miami (lost to Davydenko), won his fourth consecutive title in Monte Carlo (def. Federer) and at Barcelona (def. Ferrer), and his first in Hamburg (def. Federer) and at London's Queen's Club (def. Djokovic), where he became, two weeks before his Wimbledon victory, the first Spaniard to win a grass court title since Andrés Gimeno in 1972. After his qualification, Nadal clinched a second title at the Canada Masters (def. Kiefer), a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics (def. González), and a semifinal run at the US Open (lost to Murray). On August 18, after 160 weeks at ATP No. 2, Rafael Nadal overtook Roger Federer, breaking his 237-week streak at the top spot, to become the 24th player to hold the No. 1 rank in the twenty-five years of computerised-rankings history. Nadal eventually withdrew in the run-up to the tournament, citing fatigue.
    
  Roger Federer started his 2008 campaign with his first exit before the final in a major event since a 2005 defeat by Rafael Nadal at the French Open, when he lost in the Australian Open semifinals to Djokovic. After announcing he had contracted mononucleosis in December 2007, Federer hired clay-court specialist José Higueras to coach him, first during the clay court season, but eventually for the rest of the year. Federer qualified after he reached his third consecutive French Open final (lost to Nadal), where he suffered a 6–1, 6–3, 6–0 defeat, and his sixth consecutive Wimbledon final (lost to Nadal). After failing to beat the five-consecutive-title streak at the All England Club record and losing his third Grand Slam tournament in a row for the first time since 2002, Federer described the Wimbledon final as his "hardest loss by far". When he qualified, Federer had lost two more finals to Nadal in Monte Carlo and Hamburg, and won only two ATP International Series titles in Estoril (def. Davydenko) and Halle (def. Kohlschreiber). Despite losing his number 1 spot to Nadal in August, the rest of Federer's season featured better results with a third consecutive title in Basel (def. Nalbandian), and a fifth straight victory at the US Open (def. Murray) which brought him one Grand Slam title short of Pete Sampras's record of fourteen.
  Novak Djokovic had the best start of the season, as the Serb reached his second straight Grand Slam final after the 2007 US Open, and won his first major title at the Australian Open (def. Tsonga), becoming the first man other that Federer or Nadal to win a Grand Slam since Marat Safin in Melbourne three years before. Djokovic reached his fifth straight Grand Slam semifinal at the French Open (lost to Nadal), but suffered his earliest exit in a major since a first round loss at the 2006 Australian Open, in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships (lost to Safin). In the first part of the year, Djokovic also reached the London's Queen's Club final (lost to Nadal), and won two ATP Masters Series titles in Indian Wells (def. Fish)
caption: Novak Djokovic remained ranked third during the complete season
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