2016 Andy Murray tennis season to defend the Olympic singles title. In the 2016 season, Murray became the first male player to win singles titles at a Grand Slam, the Olympics, a Masters 1000 event, and the ATP Finals in the same calendar year (Serena Williams, in 2012, is the only other person to accomplish this feat). On 7 November, Murray became the first British man and twenty-sixth male player to attain the world No. 1 ranking in singles since records began in 1973, displacing long-time rival and friend, Novak Djokovic. At , Murray is the oldest first-time singles No. 1 in the last 40
Grand Slam (tennis) have more respect for history, ruled in 1982 that winning any four straight majors constituted a Grand Slam—and offered a $1 million bonus for it [...] But many tennis people, and most writers, and probably most fans, too, did not accept the new rules, and the I.T.F. has dropped the gimmick." Vecsey was only half right: the ITF dropped the "gimmick" of the cash bonus, but it had never changed any rules. However, the ambiguous way the ITF described the Grand Slam in their Constitution led to journalists continuing to make the same assumption as Vecsey over two decades later.