Dan and PC1, the Buchholz article in World Tennis reports that Rosewall was the winner of the '64 tour and that he is still unquestionably the number one player in the world; Buchholz even explains that Laver would be number one if he had done better against the rest of the field.
But here's the question, if the tour Buchholz refers to was not designated as a world championship tour, then what could Rosewall's number one ranking be based on? Buchholz reports that Rosewall won the most points on the tour in question, with Laver finishing second. If anything Laver holds the edge over Rosewall on any activity that falls outside the tour, so on what basis could Rosewall have been named number one in the world if not for what he did on the tour?
The phrase 'world championship series' was used for the tour (as it was for the '59 tournament series). It was used at least once, to describe the final at the Noordwijk tournament, which Buchholz lists as part of the tour:
Andres Gimeno of Spain, seeded fourth, upset top-seeded Ken Rosewall of Australia 8-6, 6-2 yesterday in the final of a world professional tennis championship series here. (AP report)
How much weight to give to the tour is debatable, but I don't think it's to be doubted that there was a '64 championship series and that Rosewall won it.
And that was made clear in any case by this article that I posted a couple of months ago, from a press report on Nov. 18, 1964:
Laver Takes Second in Pro Net Rankings
NICE, France--UPI--Rod Laver of Australia finished in second place in the 1964 world professional tennis rankings when he beat Spain's Andres Gimeno 6-4, 6-3, in the final of the Nice Professional Tennis Tourney last night.
Ken Rosewall finished the season in first place ahead of Laver and Gimeno is officially ranked third.
Bobby, since you've studied the Buchholz article and the '64 situation so closely, I'd like to get your opinion on what Buchholz means by "130 days". The span from the first tournament to the very last stand in Tours, France on Nov. 26 is far longer (close to 200 days). Could he mean total number of days of activity on the tour?
I'm just wondering that, because we know we're missing a good deal of Laver's activity for the year, primarily in the Middle East and France at the end of the year. We have 110 matches documented for Laver, covering the entire year (January-November). Do you think it's possible that the missing matches might bring him to a total of around 130?