Here is the post by Krosero that Urban is discussing.
Even Wembley and the French Pro really wasn't played that often. The French Pro wasn't played from 1940 to 1952, possibly played in 1953, was not played in 1954, 1955 and 1957 and possibly played in 1956. Wembley wasn't played from 1940 to 1948, not held in 1954, 1955 and then played until as late as 1971. It was not played from 1972 to 1975 and played from 1976 to 1990.
So in this way, considering the lack of a fixed schedule every day you really cannot equate the Old Pro Tour "Important Tournaments" with the Classic Open Majors of today. I think more importance should be focused on how many years did the player in question dominated and was number one. The World Championhips Tours was generally played every year from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s. I believe this is of more substance by a large amount over the Important Tournaments of the Old Pro Tour.
Counting these "Important Tournaments" as equivalent to majors doesn't make sense now to me. I used to think it was okay but not anymore when I examine the huge differences.
This doesn't take away from the greatness of players like Laver or Gonzalez but we just have to look at other tournaments plus the World Championship Tours and their overall dominance through their long tenure as the best player in the world.
PC1, I cannot agree with your argument here at all.
Firstly, some historical context. The French Pro and Wembley were not played during the war years, but that was also true of the French Amateur championships and Wimbledon. The latter were resumed when the war ended in 1945, but England and especially France needed some time before any semblance of normal life returned, and that included pro tennis. That was no fault of the pros.
That long span in which Wembley and French Pro were not played should not be held against those tournaments. And it’s especially ironic because both tournaments were RESOUNDING successes in the last peacetime year (1939). French Pro attracted far larger crowds to Roland Garros than did the French Amateur championships, that year. Pro tennis was looking in very good shape by then (I wish your post had at least glanced at the 1930s because none of these questions can be decided without doing so), but was simply stopped cold because of the war. Amateur championships were quicker to return after the war compared to pro events, but that’s because amateurs were always given precedence in those days, by the establishment. Again, no fault of the pros.
I’m sure you would agree with me 100% that it wasn’t their fault; nevertheless these are the same arguments that were levelled at the pros even back then: that their events simply didn’t have tradition/continuity comparable to the amateur events.
Now, the world championship tours. Everything you say about the pro majors is true of those tours as well. They were not held during the war. Even after the war, there was no tour at all in 1949, 1952, 1955, 1962 – the very span in which you hold them up as stable events. And the world championship tours – as you define them, meaning the H2H tours – were not held at all after 1963. So we’re talking about an event that did not even last through the pro era.
I have documented a great number of these world series tours with a fine-toothed comb, and I don’t think I’m being boastful at all in stating that there are very few who have looked at these tours as much, and as closely, as I have. And I don’t agree with your picture of their importance, at all. They have their place – and a very important one – but you are presenting them as something that they were not.
I don’t think, by the way, that the lack of continuity should be held against any of these events, whether tournaments or tours.
And I don’t understand the standard against which you’re judging. You argue that the pros didn’t have tournaments “like we have today.” There NEVER was an era in tennis history in which the majors were as established, and the tour was scheduled around them, as we have today. By this modern standard everything will pale in comparison, including the world championship tours.
If you’re looking at the things that the pros didn’t have, that we have today, the list is endless. Today at the majors you have the entire tennis world showing up to play full 7-round draws, at historical/important venues, in front of the whole world. The h2h tours consisted usually of no more than 2 players confronting each other, occasionally in good venues like Madison Square Garden but quite often in whatever local venue they could find; often you’d get an experienced pro whipping a helpless amateur. And this, for you, is the central factor in deciding world number one’s in the pro years?
For example, when we say that Gonzalez was number one in 1956, you’re saying that his whipping of new pro Trabert is of more substance than Gonzalez’s record against seasoned pros (the best players in the world) in the latter half of the year?
(And you have French Pro as only “possibly” played in 1956? Is that a typo?)
Honestly it’s the comparison with modern tennis that I find so questionable here. There is so much that pre-Open tennis, both amateur and pro, sorely lacked, compared to what we have now. The pro majors were not equivalent to today’s majors (there’s wide agreement about that), but if that’s true it’s doubly true that the amateur majors don’t hold a candle to what we have today. Want to start comparing prize money? That was a big fat zero, for the amateurs (at least officially). Best players in the world? Not in their draws, not by a long shot. They had tradition and continuity, but for me that means very little in context, because their continuity was due to their being backed by an obsolete establishment that prevented a truly open sport senselessly for decades.
I do not understand why a modern standard is being used here, to judge the past. If you start bringing in harshly drawn comparisons with today’s tennis, there is no event or era in tennis history that will not take a serious hit.
