...
That means you'll show us that all these folks who voted for Connors in '76 --
John Barrett
Judith Elian (who wrote for L'Equipe magazine in France)
Bud Collins
Lance Tingay
Peter Bodo
Joe McCauley
...
Hi Krosero.
Some precisions :
L'Équipe Magazine was created in 1981 as the week-end (Saturday) supplement of the daily newspaper L'Équipe so in 1976 only L'Équipe existed. Besides in any case L'Équipe Magazine published any world ranking in any sport. Therefore Judith Élian edited it in L'Équipe. This is a very little detail.
All L'Équipe's annual rankings that I know were always published in January of the next year, even in the late 50's, it was published in January of the following year in order to take into account all the important events.
In the USLTA Guides, Collins also considered the calendar year including the Masters and the Davis Cup final.
Other detail : Tennis de France very seldom published annual Top10 rankings.
The only ones I know are that of 1953 (amateur ranking of the calendar year, Hoad being chosen #1 amateur because of his Trabert and Seixas wins in Davis Cup) and of 1954 (Philippe Chatrier, Tennis de France creator, published his own ranking but I'm not sure it was in his own magazine).
The other years some Tennis de France journalists stated that such or such player was the best in the world but the magazine never published a Top10 (or Top20) ranking after 1954. When Tennis de France made the account of Wimbledon 1976, the reporter of the magazine for that event headlined something like "Borg Champion du Monde" ("Borg Champion of the World") because he made the direct parallel with Ashe's record in 1975 (Dallas + Wimby crowns) however once the year 1976 was fully over, Tennis de France changed his mind considering that Connors was the #1 with Borg very close, both players clearly ahead of Nastase and Panatta.
This is "Tennis Magazine" (the French and not the US paper) which ranked Borg #1 in 1976 (and in 1977) and not "Tennis de France" as believed by Borgforever in that thread :
however "Tennis Magazine" 's 1976 and 1977 rankings were contradictory.
They considered that Borg had the best record in 1976 (which I'm not sure at all) and even if the Swede's win-loss record against Connors was 0-4, they chose Borg as the sole #1 (I don't agree but it was their opinion).
For 1977 they made a similar account concerning Vilas. They said that the Argentinian had the best record of the year but this time they used the H2H argument to dismiss Vilas in favour of Borg who had in their opinion a clearly less good record than Vilas in 1977 : but this time they considered that the completely negative Argentinian H2H record against Borg (0-3) was the deciding factor whereas they didn't use at all this argument in favour of Connors the previous year, 1976.
About the "October n-1 / October n" rankings I think they were completely ridiculous from the very start. They were accurate when there was no major (or close to major) events in the last months of a calendar year but were not at all when in particular the Davis Cup challenge round, the most important event of the amateur circuit, was held in Australia in December.
And even in the first open era years, that 12 month-span was used by McCauley for instance (and World Tennis in general).
His ranking for 1971 didn't take into account the WCT Finals played in November, the Masters in December though these events were the conclusion of respectively the WCT and Grand Prix circuits but he counted the Masters 1970 (which was the conclusion of the Grand Prix 1970).
For instance in his 1968 rankings McCauley considered Santana as a Top10 (or close to it) player and the main argument was Santana's great record in Davis Cup : among Santana's wins was his Newcombe's defeat in the 1967 challenge round. It was inaccurate.
If we except some early world amateur rankings in 1913, 1914 and 1919, these rankings truly began in the 1920's when the Americans were the best players in the world (Tilden, Johnston, Richards & al) so the end of the American season was considered as the year ending in particular because the Davis Challenge Round was held in August or September a few days before the US Champs. The latter were followed by the last important US events, the Pacific Southwest Champs and the Pacific Coast Champs. So from mid-October to December what was left ? In Europe most of the events were played indoors with few or not Americans or Australians and in Australia the "summer" circuit used to begin with mainly only local players who weren't the best in the world : even Patterson the best Aussie couldn't compete with Tilden or Johnston. Besides the Australian "summer" circuit ending in January or February or March (or even April) it was hard to take it as a whole into account in a calendar year ranking.
So between WWI and the late 1940's it was more or less accurate to consider the "October n-1 - October n" season in the annual rankings.
But as soon as Australia became the best "amateur" country this span was inaccurate because the Davis Cup Challenge Round was usually held in Australia so in December (and not in August or September as in the USA and even late July at Roland Garros or Wimbledon when France and Great Britain were the Davis Cup holders). From then on the Australian circuit became important and of course the Davis Cup Challenge Round was the climax of the amateur year.
However Tingay or McCauley for instance continued to publish rankings in October.
Potter who used to do the same until the 40's, more or less changed in the 50's and then waited for the challenge round to give his own ranking.
Skiing has always been a winter activity (nowadays it changes a little because you can ski indoors in July in hot desert regions) so it was accurate that every international winter season crossed successive years
but
(Lawn) tennis has always been a sport which could be played almost everywhere on earth and in almost every season because you can play either outdoors or indoors according to the season.
As soon as 1878 there were the first indoor champs :the first Scottish Championships were played indoors.
The Scandinavians used to play more indoors than outdoors in those days. Sure there was a very little minority of people who could play indoors in winter because there were few indoor tennis courts (it was very expensive to built indoor courts) in Europe or in the USA.
However in utmost limits one can (could) play tennis from January to December even if it frozes (frozed) outdoors.
And in the case you don't like cold you can play tennis in successive endless "summers" by following the sun : in the 40's-50's Drobny played in India in January then played the Egyptian circuit in March then the Mediterranean circuit in April-May then the French Champs and Wimby in boreal summer then the European or the American circuit in August-September then once again the Mediterranean circuit in October and then in a few occasions he played the last months of a year in a warm region, as he did for instance in late 1949-early 1950 in Australia (he also played indoor events in these months as the French autumn events or the British Indoor tourneys).
So even in the old days the best players had no restriction to play tennis whenever they wanted because indoor "lawn" tennis was born almost as early as outdoor "lawn" tennis.
Therefore stopping a year in October when important (and sometimes very important) events concluding the year were held afterwards
was a clear nonsense.
