Is Vilas clay court official titles total 49 or 46

T

timnz

Legend
I started thinking about this now that Nadal is on 45 titles and he is currently playing a clay court tournament in South America.

Sites like

http://www.tennis-x.com/stats/tennisrecords.php

List Vilas as having 46 clay titles

But other sites like Wikipedia (yes I know this can be unreliable - but they list them all individually) have him at 49 titles.

So what is it - 46 or 49 official clay court titles?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vilas

Wikipedia also lists 4 unofficial clay titles on top of the 49 - Rye, Caracas, 2 river plate championships.
 
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G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
I updated Vilas's Wikipedia page to show that he won 49 clay court titles instead of 46.

The ATP wrongly listed his titles at Toronto in 1974 and 1976, and Virginia Beach in 1977 as being won on hard courts, when I know for sure that they were all won on clay, and there are sources that confirm this.

Basically quite a few North American tournaments, in Toronto and Eastern USA (such as Cincinnati and Columbus), in the 70s which were listed by the ATP as being played on hard courts were actually played on har-tru. Until the US Open switched to hard courts in 1978, the surface was only really used in West coast/Western USA tournaments (i.e. LA, Fort Worth) and also Johannesburg.

Toronto and Cincinnati only switched to hard courts from har-tru in 1979. Given that these are 2 big modern day masters series events, and are 2 of the oldest tournaments in tennis history after Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, it is pretty bad that the ATP have got their surface histories wrong.

The likes of Nastase, Orantes and Connors also won more clay court titles (and therefore fewer hard court ones) than they are officially credited with for this same reason.
 
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T

timnz

Legend
My worry

My worry is that when Nadal gets to 47 clay titles, they will be crediting him with the open era clay title record when it would be undeserved. Nothing against Nadal - but he.needs to break the true record.
 
T

timnz

Legend
Gizo said:
I updated Vilas's Wikipedia page to show that he won 49 clay court titles instead of 46.

The ATP wrongly listed his titles at Toronto in 1974 and 1976, and Virginia Beach in 1977 as being won on hard courts, when I know for sure that they were all won on clay, and there are sources that confirm this.

Basically quite a few North American tournaments, in Toronto and Eastern USA (such as Cincinnati and Columbus), in the 70s which were listed by the ATP as being played on hard courts were actually played on har-tru. Until the US Open switched to hard courts in 1978, the surface was only really used in West coast/Western USA tournaments (i.e. LA, Fort Worth) and also Johannesburg.

Toronto and Cincinnati only switched to hard courts from har-tru in 1979. Given that these are 2 big modern day masters series events, and are 2 of the oldest tournaments in tennis history after Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, it is pretty bad that the ATP have got their surface histories wrong.

The likes of Nastase, Orantes and Connors also won more clay court titles (and therefore fewer hard court ones) than they are officially credited with for this same reason.
Click to expand...

That is really good information. Do you have any links to articles establishing Toronto and Virginia beach as being on clay (I completely believe you, it just would be nice for me to have the evidence to make a case for the record to be changed)
 
T

TMF

Talk Tennis Guru
timnz said:
I started thinking about this now that Nadal is on 45 titles and he is currently playing a clay court tournament in South America.

Sites like

http://www.tennis-x.com/stats/tennisrecords.php

List Vilas as having 46 clay titles

But other sites like Wikipedia (yes I know this can be unreliable - but they list them all individually) have him at 49 titles.

So what is it - 46 or 49 official clay court titles?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vilas

Wikipedia also lists 4 unofficial clay titles on top of the 49 - Rye, Caracas, 2 river plate championships.
Click to expand...

According to tennisabstract, they also have Vilas at 46.

http://www.tennisabstract.com/cgi-bin/player.cgi?p=GuillermoVilas&f=ACareerqqB1E0
 
G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
timnz said:
That is really good information. Do you have any links to articles establishing Toronto and Virginia beach as being on clay (I completely believe you, it just would be nice for me to have the evidence to make a case for the record to be changed)
Click to expand...

Sorry for the late response but here are the sources:

Toronto 1974:

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/7531693/

'One of the strongest clay court fields of the year has been assembled for the seven day tournament and the slower, clay-type surfaces are not Connors' favorite'

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AYkxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1KEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=882,852787

'Okker appeared to tire in the second set and said later he wasn’t used to playing on clay because of World Team Tennis which is played indoors on fast surfaces'

Toronto 1976:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...7090,4248808

“You can’t expect to serve your way out of trouble on clay all the time.” he (Newcombe) said later.

Virginia Beach 1977:

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/68484059/

The likes of llie Nastase, Guillermo ilas, Vitas Gernlitis, Bob Luts and a future superstar n Join McEnroe graced the clay courts of the Virginia Beach tennis club'

Also regarding Canada:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...k Toronto 1979 first year hard courts&f=false

'In August 1979, the Canadian Open was played for the first time on Deco Turf II, rather than clay'
 
G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
Interestinly the ATP seem to have updated their records according to this article:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2015/02/8/Buenos-Aires-Saturday-Nadal-Monaco.aspx

'Nadal ousted home hope Carlos Berlocq 7-6(7), 6-2 in the semi-finals of the Argentina Open presentado por Buenos Aires Ciudad, and is one match win from winning his 46th clay-court crown, which would pull him to within three of Guillermo Vilas' Open Era record of 49.'

The following sources are also interesting:

http://www.tennisnow.com/Blogs/NET-...s-Case-of-Guillermo-Vilas’s-Missing-Clay.aspx

https://twitter.com/joseluisd/status/572117197478342658

I'm tooting my own horn here, but I'm glad that my wikipedia update a while back attracted some interest and eventually led to the ATP correcting their records. I thought that they would just ignore this debate and pretend that they were right.
 
T

timnz

Legend
Mustard

Mustard

Bionic Poster
You'd think the ATP would employ some tennis historians to research all these results and records. When I was compiling my own personal lists of open era results in majors many years back, I noticed a lot of errors in the ATP website's database. There were a lot of these errors. The ITF's website was considerably better for its listing of tennis match results, but still not perfect.
 
T

timnz

Legend
What was Vilas' unbeaten clay court match number?

How many victories in a row on Clay did Vilas have. Was the Viriginia Beach competition added into that list?:

Virginia Beach, VA, USA; 19.04.1977; GP; Outdoor: Clay; Draw: 16

Round Opponent Ranking Score
R16 Butch Walts (USA) N/A W 6-0, 6-7, 7-6
Q Ray Ruffels (AUS) N/A W 6-4, 6-3
S Vitas Gerulaitis (USA) N/A W 6-3, 6-3
W Ilie Nastase (ROU) N/A W 6-2, 4-6, 6-2
 
E

eldanger25

Hall of Fame
Gizo said:
Interestinly the ATP seem to have updated their records according to this article:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2015/02/8/Buenos-Aires-Saturday-Nadal-Monaco.aspx

'Nadal ousted home hope Carlos Berlocq 7-6(7), 6-2 in the semi-finals of the Argentina Open presentado por Buenos Aires Ciudad, and is one match win from winning his 46th clay-court crown, which would pull him to within three of Guillermo Vilas' Open Era record of 49.'

The following sources are also interesting:

http://www.tennisnow.com/Blogs/NET-...s-Case-of-Guillermo-Vilas’s-Missing-Clay.aspx

https://twitter.com/joseluisd/status/572117197478342658

I'm tooting my own horn here, but I'm glad that my wikipedia update a while back attracted some interest and eventually led to the ATP correcting their records. I thought that they would just ignore this debate and pretend that they were right.
Click to expand...

Let me echo the gratitude - great work here, and thanks for it.
 
muddlehead

muddlehead

Professional
How cool to change and correct history! Curious. Did Vilas ever chime in at any time to anyone that he was being shortchanged?
And / or did he ever thank Gizo? (P.S. History will one day forget that US Open went clay for 3 years 1975-6-7 between grass at Forest Hills and hard at Flushing causing all summer tourneys to be clay also)
 
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Crisstti

Crisstti

Legend
muddlehead said:
How cool to change and correct history! Curious. Did Vilas ever chime in at any time to anyone that he was being shortchanged?
And / or did he ever thank Gizo? (P.S. History will one day forget that US Open went clay for 3 years 1975-6-7 between grass at Forest Hills and hard at Flushing causing all summer tourneys to be clay also)
Click to expand...

Definitely :) This could well have been lost in time.
 
L

lukowicz

Banned
Gizo said:
I updated Vilas's Wikipedia page to show that he won 49 clay court titles instead of 46.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia is a thrash site so I don't know why you even bother. It will probably be changed back to the wrong info soon as most things on there are meant to be wrong.
 
G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
Thanks for the kind words guys :) . It is kind of cool that we on this forum were able to correct tennis history a bit.

I wasn't expecting the whole 49 vs. 46 title update to have even been noticed to be honest.

Also Orantes won 31 clay court titles rather than 30 (his 1975 Toronto title was on clay) while Nastase won 28 clay court titles (the same as Lendl) and not 26 as his 1971 Nice and 1973 Cincinnati titles were also on clay.

Connors was credited with 11 clay court titles for a long time until his 1972 Cincinnati title was correctly changed to clay giving him 12. However I strongly suspect that his 1972 and 1973 Columbus and 1975 Boca Raton titles were also on clay rather than hard courts giving him at least 15. Also what about his 1973 Boston title? Was that really on hard courts rather than clay, with hard courts not really a common surface in that area at the time? The surface history of those U.S. Pro champs in the 60s and 70s is pretty murky.
 
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N

NoMercy

Hall of Fame
Gizo said:
Thanks for the kind words guys :) . It is kind of cool that we on this forum were able to correct tennis history a bit.

I wasn't expecting the whole 49 vs. 46 title update to have even been noticed to be honest.

Also Orantes won 31 clay court titles rather than 30 (his 1975 Toronto title was on clay) while Nastase won 28 clay court titles (the same as Lendl) and not 26 as his 1971 Nice and 1973 Cincinnati titles were also on clay.

Connors was credited with 11 clay court titles for a long time until his 1972 Cincinnati title was correctly changed to clay giving him 12. However I strongly suspect that his 1972 and 1973 Columbus and 1975 Boca Raton titles were also on clay rather than hard courts giving him at least 15. Also what about his 1973 Boston title? Was that really on hard courts rather than clay, with hard courts not really a common surface in that area at the time? The surface history of those U.S. Pro champs in the 60s and 70s is pretty murky.
Click to expand...
Just considering the Tournaments in ATP database.
Connors has won 12 clay courts titles, 3 of them on red clay. I see on his wiki page Columbus and Hamilton listed on clay, but it was hardcourt (dynaturf for Columbus and cement for Hamilton).

Orantes has 30 clay titles (probably you have Caracas on clay? but it was hardcourt at Altamira Tennis Club)

Nastase has 29 (probably you miss Cedar Grove?)
 
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G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
NoMercy said:
Just considering the Tournaments in ATP database.
Connors has won 12 clay courts titles, 3 of them on red clay. I see on his wiki page Columbus and Hamilton listed on clay, but it was hardcourt (dynaturf for Columbus and cement for Hamilton).

Orantes has 30 clay titles (probably you have Caracas on clay? but it was hardcourt at Altamira Tennis Club)

Nastase has 29 (probably you miss Cedar Grove?)
Click to expand...

Thanks this is very useful information.
.
Regarding Connors, I think that his 1975 Bermuda title has always been listed has won on clay, so that needs to be changed to hard courts. I did change his 1975 Boca Raton title from hard to clay as I knew for sure he won it on har-tru and that was supported by newspaper articles. That 's interesting Columbus was played on hard courts i had no idea; so in the same state of Ohio Columbus was on hard but the Cincinnati tournament was played on clay. So that was one of the rare Eastern USA tournaments on hard courts in the early 70s then. So I guess it was just a case of swapping the surfaces for Boca Raton and Hamilton / Bermuda around still leaving him with 12 clay court titles.

For Orantes, I think that his 1972 Caracas title has always been listed as won on hard courts, so it still comes to 31 titles on clay? He won 36 titles in total, and by the process of elimination it appears that 5 of them were not on clay, Madrid in 1968 and 1969, Macon in 1969 (to be honest i know next to nothing about those events), Caracas in 1972 and the Masters in Houston in 1976. I think all of his other 31 title wins were on clay?

For Nastase, that's very interesting about his 1974 Cedar Grove title, again i think it's always been listed as won on indoor hard courts so I didn't really know anything about that tournament (i think it was only held for 1 year). That gives Nasty an extra clay court title.
 
N

NoMercy

Hall of Fame
Gizo said:
Thanks this is very useful information.
.
Regarding Connors, I think that his 1975 Bermuda title has always been listed has won on clay, so that needs to be changed to hard courts. I did change his 1975 Boca Raton title from hard to clay as I knew for sure he won it on har-tru and that was supported by newspaper articles. That 's interesting Columbus was played on hard courts i had no idea; so in the same state of Ohio Columbus was on hard but the Cincinnati tournament was played on clay. So that was one of the rare Eastern USA tournaments on hard courts in the early 70s then. So I guess it was just a case of swapping the surfaces for Boca Raton and Hamilton / Bermuda around still leaving him with 12 clay court titles.

For Orantes, I think that his 1972 Caracas title has always been listed as won on hard courts, so it still comes to 31 titles on clay? He won 36 titles in total, and by the process of elimination it appears that 5 of them were not on clay, Madrid in 1968 and 1969, Macon in 1969 (to be honest i know next to nothing about those events), Caracas in 1972 and the Masters in Houston in 1976. I think all of his other 31 title wins were on clay?

For Nastase, that's very interesting about his 1974 Cedar Grove title, again i think it's always been listed as won on indoor hard courts so I didn't really know anything about that tournament (i think it was only held for 1 year). That gives Nasty an extra clay court title.
Click to expand...
Orantes won more than 60 tournaments, but only 32 are listed in ATP.
Of those 32, only 2 were not held on clay.
So 30 total on clay.
 
G

Gizo

Hall of Fame
NoMercy said:
Orantes won more than 60 tournaments, but only 32 are listed in ATP.
Of those 32, only 2 were not held on clay.
So 30 total on clay.
Click to expand...

OK thanks, I have to admit that I don't use the ATP website a lot as it's pre 1990 records are pretty poor, so I had assumed that Orantes was credited with the 36 titles that are listed on his wiki page. But of course the ATP don't recognise those 4 titles from 1968-1969, including his big 1969 Barcelona Torneo Godo title on clay when he beat Santana in the final, even though that tournament is still currently part of the ATP tour.

And yes we know that all of these players' official title counts are understated.
 
N

NoMercy

Hall of Fame
Gizo said:
OK thanks, I have to admit that I don't use the ATP website a lot as it's pre 1990 records are pretty poor, so I had assumed that Orantes was credited with the 36 titles that are listed on his wiki page. But of course the ATP don't recognise those 4 titles from 1968-1969, including his big 1969 Barcelona Torneo Godo title on clay when he beat Santana in the final, even though that tournament is still currently part of the ATP tour.

And yes we know that all of these players' official title counts are understated.
Click to expand...
Well, Wikipedia is as bad as ATP.
In this occasion is worst.
Barcelona 69 was an amateur event.
1970 was first open edition.
Also the other 3 extra tournaments listed in wiki were amateurs. If we count the amateurs events, all the numbers will be very different.
Honestly I don’t get why only those 4 were listed :D

To be honest, I never use Wikipedia
 
N

NoMercy

Hall of Fame
Gizo said:
OK thanks, I have to admit that I don't use the ATP website a lot as it's pre 1990 records are pretty poor, so I had assumed that Orantes was credited with the 36 titles that are listed on his wiki page. But of course the ATP don't recognise those 4 titles from 1968-1969, including his big 1969 Barcelona Torneo Godo title on clay when he beat Santana in the final, even though that tournament is still currently part of the ATP tour.

And yes we know that all of these players' official title counts are understated.
Click to expand...
I mean, Orantes won the Real Madrid tournament also in 1970.
Why including 68 and 69 but not 70???
 
D

Dan Lobb

G.O.A.T.
NoMercy said:
Just considering the Tournaments in ATP database.
Connors has won 12 clay courts titles, 3 of them on red clay. I see on his wiki page Columbus and Hamilton listed on clay, but it was hardcourt (dynaturf for Columbus and cement for Hamilton).

Orantes has 30 clay titles (probably you have Caracas on clay? but it was hardcourt at Altamira Tennis Club)

Nastase has 29 (probably you miss Cedar Grove?)
Click to expand...
When did Altamira switch from clay to hardcourt? The players who won that tournament historically have been strong on clay. Laver won it in 1961 and 1962.
 
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