Top 3 Player Did Not Win a Masters Series

[McEnroeisanartist]

Murray will finish the year ranked #3 and if he doesn't win Paris, he will have not won a Masters Series title this year.

I would have thought it would be rare for a player to finish in the top 3 having not won a Masters Series title during the year. It turns out it has happened often:

1990 - Lendl (3) - Did Not Make a Final
1991 - Edberg (1) - Made one Final
1996 - Sampras (1) - Made one Final, Kafelnikov (3) - Made one final
1997 - Rafter (2) - Did Not Make a Final
1998 - Sampras (1) - Made two finals, Corretja (3) - Made one final
1999 - Kafelnikov (3) - Made one Final
2001 - Hewitt (1) - Did Not Make a Final
2003 - Federer (2) - Made one final
2004 - Hewitt - (3) - Made one final
2005 - Roddick (3) - Made one final
2008 - Federer (2) - Made two finals
2010 - Djokovic (3) - Did Not Make a final

[Homeboy Hotel]

Murray may not win Paris, but if he wins London then that's pretty much the 'Masters of all Masters' (use to be called Masters Cup?).

I'm sure he'll count that as winning a Masters every year since 08.

[mattennis]

As I said many times, you can not compare that way because the rules were different.

Prior to 2000 the M-1000 were NOT mandatory, you would not get a ZERO for skipping them. You could win many points in other tournaments (they computed only your 14 best results in the last 52 weeks)

Today is different. The points you get in any M-1000 (bar Monte Carlo) count to your ranking heavily, so today these M-1000 tournaments are MUCH MORE important (for your ranking) than in previous decades.