FedericRoma83
Rookie
Sure!So you include 1986 Masters because there was no Australian that year - correct?
If I have to save a match from AO '72-'82, it would surely be that one. Great victory from Newcombe.The 1975 Australian Open final was big, though, with Newcombe finally getting to meet Connors after it failed to materialise in 1974.
But a great match doesn't save eleven years and twelve editions with weak fields. Look at the 1975 edition that we are saying: it was a five rounds tournament (like an actual ATP 500).
The top-4 seeded were Jimmy Connors (the world #1), John Newcombe (#2), Tony Roche (#26) and John Alexander (#27). The third and fourth seeded were not even in the top-25! (And remember that it was the only time that the world no. 1 entered it).
What if at the 2012 AO the top-4 seeded were Djokovic, Nadal, Monaco and Granollers? With no Federer, Murray, Tsonga, Ferrer, Berdych, Delpo, Tipsarevic... ahahah.
Great tournament, even if Rod Laver said that it had not so much media coverage, because it was crushed between other sport events. Anyway in 1971 the Australian Open was amazing, even better than Roland Garros, so the WCT was probably the 5th tournament that season.And what's your view of the 1971 WCT Dallas event?
We are speaking two different languages (not a bad thing tough, I like confrontation).I'm sorry, but I stick by my belief that the majors with weaker fields were due to the politics of the age, but they were still majors.
What is official and what is not is secondary in my opinion.
Just look at the Grand Slam Cup: at the time it wasn't considered official, but the players considered it as important as the Masters and they fought the hell out of each other to win it (a lot of 5-set epic matches!).
After the tournament was dismissed the ATP changed its mind and declared that it was official: that's simply ridiculous. How can something became official after it was played?
Another example: the E.C.C. Antwerp. It was one hell of a tournament. Its first prize in the mid 80s was 200.000 dollars (when the richest Slam prize, the US Open one, was around 180-190.000 dollars). In addition, they offered a Gold Raquet estimated at around 700.000 dollars, in the case of three victories in five years. When Ivan Lendl won it for the third time in 1985, he received a combined amount of over 900.000 dollars (nearly 5 times the US Open first prize). Guess what? The ATP said it wasn't official. But now they're discussing about making it official: 20 years after it was dismissed!
Obviously Grand Slam Cup and E.C.C. Antwerp wouldn't have been Majors even if they were official, but they were still two of the greatest tournaments after the four Slam. That's why I think you don't have to give all that credit to ATP: it doesn't help you in any kind of way to estabilish who were the greatest players.
I'm not interested in piecing together all the nominal majors in tennis history: we don't need to do it, we already know which ones are nominally indicated as Majors and which ones aren't.
Australian Open is nominally a major since 1924 (when it was still called Australasian Championship).
My point is: if a tournament is a Major only in theory, but not de facto, it can't be helpful to estabilish who were the stronger players of the year (which is what we are discussing here).
To estabilish that, I need to find the four effective greatest tournament, the biggest events with lots of money and high level of players (these two seem to work together: just look at the money difference between the bad 1970 AO and the great 1971 edition with the biggest players).
Nobody said officially that the late 70s-early 80s Masters was a Major, but if fact everybody considered it the big one after the first three Slam. Just look some old matches and hear the commentary to understand what I'm saying. I repeat, it's just to understand who was the best player, not to re-write ATP rules (I couldn't care less ;D ).