The stakes were very different for the 24 players (singles and doubles) who earned a trip to London to compete in the World Tour Finals last week. So lets see how some of their ambitions played out in a tournament that, thanks to the round-robin format, gave each player multiple chances to prove his mettle.The winnersNo. 1 Andy Murray (5-0, def. Novak Djokovic in final)Murray won it all with an amazing display of sustained excellence that also vaulted him over Djokovic in the battle for the year-end No. 1 ranking. Given Murrays spotty record at previous World Tour Finals, this was a remarkable feat unsullied by the disappointing quality of Djokovics game.In fact, the final demonstrated just how deeply Murray had gotten into Djokovics head during the 29-year-old Scots relentless drive to the top. This was a magical final, akin to the 2000 year-ender in which Gustavo Kuerten stunned Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in back-to-back matches to win the title and, like Murray, finish the year on top.No. 3 Milos Raonic (2-1, loss to Murray in semifinals)There were moments near the very end of Raonics dramatic battle with Andy Murray when the 25-year-old Canadians visage was almost scary -- thats how intent and focused he was. Murray won that match, but not before Raonic forced him to stare down a match point. The runner-up at Wimbledon, Raonic is the player most likely to win a Grand Slam among the contenders who havent yet won one. It isnt just that smoking hot serve and vastly improved ground game. Its his attitude.No. 8 Dominic Thiem (1-2, eliminated in round robin)Thiem thought he had blown his chance to qualify when he lost early at the Paris Masters. But his rivals for the final opening failed to capitalize, and Thiem punched his ticket to London.Although the Austrian youth won only one match (a three-setter versus Gael Monfils), he was the only player to take a set off Djokovic. Thiem also acquitted himself well against Raonic in his final, do-or-die round-robin match. Thiem, still just 23, picked up a lot of experience. He may have come in the back way, but he left London through the front door.?No. 4 doubles Henri Kontinen and John Peers (5-0, def.?Raven Klaasen?and Rajeev Ram in final)The Finnish (Kontinen) and Australian combo were torrid at the end of the year. They ended the season with a 10-match winning streak. Kontinen is bringing well-earned attention to a nation that is developing a modest but real tennis tradition, while Peers was the lone Australian player, singles or doubles, in the field.Kontinen and Peers defeated the all-French former No. 1 team of?Pierre-Hugues Herbert?and Nicolas Mahut in round-robin play, as well as the all-American, all-everything, hall-of-fame doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan in the semifinals. It just doesnt get any better in doubles, unless you want to count the $455,000 prize money the winners split.The losersNo. 2 Novak Djokovic (4-1, loss in final to Murray) Djokovic might be one of the few ATP players to welcome the brevity of tennis so-called offseason of roughly six weeks. Thats because he has a lot to ponder following his repeated collapses at critical moments in the second half of 2016. They were unexpected implosions that made his remarkable first six months seem like a distant memory.But still, all Djokovic had to do last week to retain his No. 1 year-end ranking and restore his reputation as the dominant player on the tour was keep the hard-charging Murray at bay. The O2 arena was Djokovics house (he was striving for a remarkable fifth consecutive year-end title), but Murray took a wrecking ball to it. Djokovic offered shockingly little resistance. What a costly loss.No. 5 Kei Nishikori (1-2, loss to Djokovic in semifinals) Theres no shame in having lost to Djokovic, especially not when you consider how good Djokovic looked until the title match. And finishing in the top five in the world is a great achievement. Although Nishikori can win ATP 250s and 500s until the cows come home, for some reason, he almost always shrinks back when he has a chance to make a truly resonant statement.Nishikori admitted he just wasnt ready to play Djokovic in the semis, which helps explain the 6-1, 6-1 pounding he absorbed. After lasting barely an hour against Djokovic, the 26-year-old Japanese star said he had a successful, but long and tiring, year. Guess what? So did Andy Murray. And look what he did. The surprising thing is that on a day-to-day basis, Nishikori is a skilled, tough, relentless competitor. Time to see a sports psychologist?No. 7 Gael Monfils (0-2, withdrew from round robin with injury)Monfils had the best year of his career in 2016, at age 30. Qualifying for the year-enders was a highlight, but his trip to London was a bummer from the get-go. That was partly because Monfils sustained a rib injury back during the Stockholm tournament, and it continued to trouble him in his first two round-robin pairings against Raonic and Thiem.In his final round-robin match, Monfils was scheduled to play Djokovic. But the idea of meeting Djokovic, who had won all 13 of their matches, while carrying an injury persuaded the Frenchman to withdraw from the tournament. He told reporters: You know, you work so hard for this moment, then not be able play your best, is a huge deception for me.No. 2?Pierre-Hugues Herbert?and Nicolas Mahut (0-3 in round robin)There were two battles for the year-end No. 1 ranking in London this year. In the doubles draw, Andy Murrays brother,?Jamie, and Brazils Bruno Soares were locked in a battle for the top position with the No. 1 team of Herbert and Mahut.Turns out the French guys never really showed up, going winless in London. 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- There may have been a time, when athletes smoked pipes, competed in everyday clothes and didnt tweet sponsored messages, a time that fewer and fewer people can remember, when sports were real, not theater.Theater requires audiences to suspend their disbelief, to pretend that the cardboard tree on stage is a forest and that the actor holding a skull is Hamlet.Today, after decades of doping, the best performances in the world of sport are almost immediately followed by whispers and social media postings with one question: What are they on? That wasnt always the case. Sports used to be seen as the most real form of entertainment, with regular humans doing amazing things.Paavo Nurmi, the first athlete to win five gold medals at a single Olympics, in Paris in 1924, was a former bakers errands boy who used his earnings from running to provide his family with electric light and running water.Bill Foulkes, who played in 688 matches for Manchester United from 1952 to 1970, kept his job in a coal mine when starting out at Old Trafford, underground five days a week and training with the club on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.Ethiopias Abebe Bikila retained his Olympic marathon title in 1964 just 40 days after having his appendix removed. Swedish skiing great Ingemar Stenmark strapped on his first skis at age five.Their achievements, one assumes with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, didnt need to be second-guessed at every turn. The Say it aint so, Joe reaction in more innocent times to suspect performances has become a jaded shoulder shrug of Dude, what did you expect? or its 140-character equivalent.The acidic drip, drip, drip of cheating by greedy individuals and insecure governments in the past half-century caused this corrosion of the Olympic experience. Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, abused East German teenagers, urine-swapping Russian agents, they all brought doubt to sports. The paradise of being able to accept sporting excellence for what it is, simply excellent, has been lost.Not completely. But enough that arched eyebrows have become as necessary as a cold drink and a comfy cushion when watching cycling, track and field, and other sports taken for too many rides by dopers. Olympic weightlifting isnt worth watching at all, given how history suggests that a sizeable proportion of medalists in Rio de Janeiro will likely be handing them back when the International Olympic Committee gets around to thawing out and retesting drug-test samples taken at these games, as it has done with those from Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. Those retests have so far yielded 98 positives from multiple countries and sports, including 12 weightlifting medalists from 2012..dddddddddddd.So, of course, Wayde van Niekerk had to be asked whether he is on drugs after he broke Michael Johnsons 17-year-old world record in the Rio Games 400-meter final. Hopefully, Van Niekerk didnt take the questions personally. They are just symptoms of the twice-bitten times; boxes self-respecting journalists must tick. The South African replied that he is clean.Armstrong, of course, used to say the same thing, evading most journalists sniff tests even more expertly than he and his teammates used to limbo under doping controls. Even now, after Armstrongs belated confessions that his Tour de France wins were a sham, the ease with which he lied remains remarkable for its assured delivery.Ive never taken performance-enhancing drugs, he said in a sworn deposition in 2005 . How many times do I have say it?Re-watching that, thinking how much of sports credibility he and other dopers have stolen, it is impossible not to feel cynical and angry. Likewise, watching any Russian athlete in Rio has been a struggle. Hard not to picture urine samples being passed at night through a hole in the wall of the drug-test lab at the 2014 Sochi Olympics for tipping down a drain.Still, it is important to have some faith.The reason to believe most of what you are seeing from Rio is not the 5,500 drug tests, which smart dopers know how to trick, or what athletes say, but because the alternative -- not believing -- is simply too depressing. Not trusting that most Olympians got here through hard work, good genes and honesty would mean that hard work, good genes, honesty count for nothing. And that is not true.Not believing in Van Niekerks time of 43.03 seconds simply because no one has run that fast before would mean also not believing that 43.03 seconds is humanly possible at all. Same goes for Michael Phelps unprecedented 28 swimming medals or Usain Bolts now seven (and counting) Olympic sprinting golds. Doubting brilliance simply because it is brilliant undermines the strongest reason for holding the games: so that humanitys fastest, springiest and strongest can get together to expand the envelope of what is physically and mentally possible.So although that voice in your head asking Is this for real? is understandable, even healthy, dont be drowned out by it.Dial down the cynicism, arch just one eyebrow, and try to enjoy the theater.---John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester . See his work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/john-leicester Youth NFL Jerseys Wholesale Wholesale NFL Autographed Jerseys Cheap Jerseys China Cheap Stitched Jerseys Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Camo China NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys 2019 ' ' '