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The players were Frank Sedgman, Pancho Gonzales, Pancho Segura and Earl "Butch" Buchholz.
They would play in darkened arenas and fairgrounds and travelled with a portable canvas court.
In 1980 after Buchholz was forced to retire from the World Tour due to an elbow injury he was Executive Director of the ATP.
He met Vice President of the Thomas J.
Lipton Company who liked the idea of creating a two-week players tournament.
A sponsorship deal was reached for $1.
5 million a year for five years and Lipton owned the title.
It was then called the "Winter Wimbledon" as it was the first major tournament of the year (the Australian Open was held in December in those days) and the first tournament was held at Laver's International Tennis Resort in Delray Beach, 50 miles north of Miami.
The first tournament draw included 84 of the top 100 men and 97 of the top 100 women.
The first Champions were Tim Mayotte and Martina Navratilova.
The 2011 Tournament was sponsored by Sony Ericsson and the Top 10 Men's seeds were 1.
Rafael Nadal 2.
Novak Djokovic 3.
Roger Federer 4.
Robin Soderling 5.
Andy Murray 6.
David Ferrer 7.
Tomas Berdych 8.
Andy Roddick 9.
Fernando Verdasco 10.
Jurgen Melzer The biggest shock in the tournament came with the defeat of an out-of sorts World Number 4 Andy Murray in the first round to the World Ranked Number 118 Alex Bogomolov Jr.
Murray lost the first set 6-1 and although he recovered a bit in the second set it was not enough to upset his contender.
An angry Murray screamed at the sky, shook his head and muttered a bad word as he hit his tennis shoes with his racket, but nothing can shake the British Number 1's post-Australian Open slump.
Roger Federer, who has won Miami twice, had a tough tournament and had to increase his level of play against Argentinian player Juan Monaco in the third round.
It took him nearly two hours to beat him 7-6(4)/6-4.
To reach the Quarter Final Federer did not get on court until 12.
36am due to Maria Sharapova's marathon three-and-a-half hour match before his match against the Belgian Olivier Rochus.
Determined to have a speedy match he disposed of Rochus in just 52 minutes in straight sets.
He then advanced to the Semi Final by default after his opponent Gilles Simon retired with a stiff neck when he was trailing 0-3.
His run ended there when the World Number 1 Rafael Nadal produced one of the best performances of his life to knock out his chief rival on hard courts 6-3/6-2.
The win evened out their hard court match record at 3-3.
In the other half of the Draw World Number 2 Novak Djokovic continued his successful 2011 run with a 6-3/6-1 win over American Mardy Fish to reach his 3rd Sony Ericsson Open Final.
The Serbian player had not had his service broken throughout the whole tournament, saving four break points in his match against Fish.
It was the first time the World Numbers 1 and 2 had met in the Miami Final since 1995 when Andre Agassi (2) beat Pete Sampras (1) in a 3rd set tie-break.
Djokovic is the premier player of 2011 having won every tournament he has entered - Australian Open, Dubai and Indian Wells.
In one of the most electrifying finals in the tournament's history Djokovic continued his winning run beating Nadal 4-6/6-3/7-6(4) and Djokovic told reporters after the match "It was one of the closest and best finals I have ever played.
" Djokovic took the trophy and a cheque for $605,500 while Nadal received $295,500.
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