pc1
G.O.A.T.
I have played pool a zillion times just for fun. Rarely for money. I used to own a pool table.
What is a Major?
- Thread starter -NN-
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Nathaniel, If you are counting Dallas 1972 you must also count Dallas 1971 (and 1973ff). Maybe you don't count 1972 AO.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
So finally, somebody is brave enough to maybe demote an ITF major (the audacity!!!!)...
We are tentative to demote ITF majors and to promote non-ITF tournaments and for good reason. Anyway, I agree in theory...
What about in practice?
Rosewall: 25 majors
Borg: more than 11 majors - 14???
Laver: 20 majors - maybe more? Included is the 1967 Wimbledon Pro.
Nathaniel, Please write a book about What is a major? I think we should not talk about that issue anymore so detailed as long as some posters cause a mess in ignoring history...
Blocker, You ignore tennis history. There was no Wembly, only a Wembley. And it was much more important than Tokyo...
pc1
G.O.A.T.
Again that's why we don't want to call any important tournament a major.
The majority is often wrong, like in this case.
Nathaniel, Yes.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
It's a slightly different idea than yours but I think it would also be useful for reference to have statistics for events won against full fields, regardless of format. The ATP calls them Big Titles, which I have a problem with because it applies a broad stroke of "big" to very different tiers of tournaments; and in this case, it has no redeeming features such as the tournaments at least being the most important of their time, because they come from the same time and we all know that overall Slams > Masters 1000s.
However, it's far harder to oppose them being Full Field events. There's some merit in tallying the amount of titles won by players against stiff opposition regardless of prestige.
r2473
G.O.A.T.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
I like the topic and it does make for a heated discussions. I generally agree with everything you say here.
I haven't ignored anything. Why is it not around today? I said it was an important event, but I never saw it as a major. And I never said Tokyo was more important. Tokyo was still an important event.
Who is an expert and who is not an expert? What qualifications do you have to be an expert?
pc1
G.O.A.T.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
How rare is this? It might be the equivalent of a 9-darter in darts of a maximum 147 break in snooker. I read up about it and it's quite rare and a back-to-back has only been achieved once. Incredible scenes there at the end. It was very compelling to watch this. Heck of a prize for hitting the perfect game of $100k. That puts some serious pressure on achieving the feat. Don't wanna be missing out on that kind of moolah.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
It's pretty rare for a 300 game to be on TV. However the Pros do have a number of 300 games in their careers.
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
No like from me on this post.
Here's why: tennis did not suddenly turn into a different sport in '69 in terms of quality of play. Laver did not suddenly become a better player in '69. SOMETHING in '68 was just as important as the four slams in the new open era. The best players in the world won SOMETHING.
If you say that no tournament - NO TOURNAMENT OR COMPETITION - was as important in '68 as in '69, that is absurd.
Now, you may want to argue that the worth of top tournaments should be distributed differently each year, but SOMETHING was very important, and SOMETHING has to get a lot of points if you are using a point system to equalize things then with what they are now.
What you are doing is consistently delegitimizing the play of the 50s and 60s pros, and you are just giving ignorant people who know next to nothing about tennis history free reign in basically trashing everything before the last 25 years or so.
The thing that makes modern slams so obviously important right now is the money, crowds and press.
In the pro years there was very little money, small crowds most of the time, and very little press. All these guys had was the importance THEY choose to give to certain titles, and the points THEY decided would be divided up, and so on.
There is a ton of evidence that suggests some of these "major pro titles" were most important to THEM, and you are 100% ignoring that.
If you say these "pro majors" should no longer be called that, and you suggest that they are way WAY less important than slams today, what takes there place?
Do you want to just make every tournament and competition about the same worth? If a guy can conceivably get more than 8000 points today with a grand slam - as Novak recently did in 12 months - and he can add to that with M1000s, what are you going to give Laver or Rosewall in the 60s? Nothing?
Take those "pro majors", knock them down to very little so that a year when they were won by the best players in the world they no longer have any worth?
I do not think the pc1 think this.
Should be established to agree if:
1) slam = Pro majors or..
2) slam > Pro majors
I tend to share the Version 2), but the Pro majors have great value.
How much value are compared to the current slam tournaments?
This is difficult. For me are worth half or a little more.
I do not want to remove value to the titles of Laver, Ken, Pancho ... (and are also safe pc1 ..), I prefer to halve the importance of Pro majors (though BIG events) but enter the World Tour and some other historic tournament (US Pro Indoor, 3 Los Angeles South Pacific, SA Open, Masters Pro Los Angeles, Madison Square Garde, Melbourne Pro..)
Ultimately I think there is not much difference between the titles denominated Pro majors and other BIG events.
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NN, perhaps you mean that?
1) BIG Titles of ATP (supplemented by those proposed by me for champions of previous eras) is too extended (Master 1000 and my creation "Master 7500);
2) you want to identify the SUPER MEGA IPER ULTRA tournaments, those events which at the time could be close to slam tournaments;
3) do not find yourself among the few majors Borg compared to many Rosewall, despite Borg is unanimously recognized >> Rosewall ?
Let me know if I understood well, so I give KG' version.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
Yes I agree with you there. I would also go with version 2.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
Simply, what I'm saying is that the ATP "Big titles" is an interesting way to group tournament wins but that the title is a problem, and it would be better to use the term "Full Field Titles". I'm saying that, as a different way to look at things, it would be good to have totals for titles won against (more or less) the full field. So in the modern age this would be Slam tournaments, Masters 1000 tournaments and variants of the YEC. It would encompass different tournaments for players past. I'm talking about something different to just majors and something a bit different also to pc1's general current ongoing investigations and outlook.
I do want to identify your point 2) yes, but my talk of the Full Field Titles is a different topic.
7
70sHollywood
Guest
If you really must have some kind of system to rank tournaments over time then I think the best way of doing it is to have a maximum points total for each year and whether you have 1 tournament or 10 tournaments the total value is always the same.
People should give more consideration to years like 1937/1938, when there was only 1 truly important event on the pro tour each year. How does this impact on what your idea of a "major" is?
People should give more consideration to years like 1937/1938, when there was only 1 truly important event on the pro tour each year. How does this impact on what your idea of a "major" is?
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
This is essentially what I was saying.
Also in line with what I was thinking, but I am concentrating most on the 50s and 60s because that is the period of time where some years have most been disputed. Add to that the early 70s. '64 and '70 are two years that have been at the top of the list of disputed years, and disputes inevitably are around the value of tournaments/matches.
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
Let me be more specific about what bothers me here:
Certainly the final of this year's AO was epic, but in the end it was because of the two players who reached the final.
I would look at all the Pro Majors carefully, who played, and I'd want to know the importance of each one before declaring ALL of them as vastly inferior to any modern slam.
In the future people will not that Fed faced no one who should have been a serious problem for him until he faced Nishikori, and Nishikori is unlikely to be looked at as an extremely dangerous opponent in a few years. He certainly is not even close to his own peak play this year.
M. Zverev will be considered next to nothing in the future, a walk in the park for Roger. Facing Wawrinka and Nadal back to back is nothing to sneeze at, but the main reason this AO is so important in terms of points is that it is assigned 2000 points regardless of the outcome, and the money is huge. Winning seven matches in two weeks is now hyped as a nearly impossible physical feat. The way matches are scheduled today and the convenience of predictatable starting times perfect conditions under a roof make things easier.
Why should I automatically assume that Roger's feat this year is superior to what any of the winners of those old Pro Majors accomplished without examining carefully the importance of each in any given year?
I'll add that I am by no means satisfied that changing a noun back to a verb suddenly solves huge problems in weighting matches in the pro years.
Competition is not only about the name of a tournament or the field. It is also about match-up.
Certainly the final of this year's AO was epic, but in the end it was because of the two players who reached the final.
I would look at all the Pro Majors carefully, who played, and I'd want to know the importance of each one before declaring ALL of them as vastly inferior to any modern slam.
In the future people will not that Fed faced no one who should have been a serious problem for him until he faced Nishikori, and Nishikori is unlikely to be looked at as an extremely dangerous opponent in a few years. He certainly is not even close to his own peak play this year.
M. Zverev will be considered next to nothing in the future, a walk in the park for Roger. Facing Wawrinka and Nadal back to back is nothing to sneeze at, but the main reason this AO is so important in terms of points is that it is assigned 2000 points regardless of the outcome, and the money is huge. Winning seven matches in two weeks is now hyped as a nearly impossible physical feat. The way matches are scheduled today and the convenience of predictatable starting times perfect conditions under a roof make things easier.
Why should I automatically assume that Roger's feat this year is superior to what any of the winners of those old Pro Majors accomplished without examining carefully the importance of each in any given year?
I'll add that I am by no means satisfied that changing a noun back to a verb suddenly solves huge problems in weighting matches in the pro years.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
It's really tough to work out something for those years. I think all we can do for now is compile the information. Players like Vines could have won for all I know would have won 20 tournaments if there was Open Tennis or a Pro Schedule of note.
By no means is this task going to be easy but I feel it is worth it to sort out all the information.
Blocker, Is it possible that a big event can be abolished after a certain time and yet having been a major??? You did say that Tokyo was equally important with Wembley. That's wrong.
Wembley was the top event for the pros prior to open era and lost much of its importance when the pros were allowed to enter the GS tournaments.
Gary, Very clever and courageous post.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
He made an incorrect assumption on what I thought. He wrote essentially everything I want to do. There was no disagreement.
One thing I wanted to do was to keep great respect for the Old Pro Tour's top tournaments and I discussed that in some posts and with some of you privately.
My other posts covered everything he wrote already.
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Blocker. An expert is at least one who has studied tennis history for more than 40 years.
At least you don't ignore the fact that pro majors have been held, unlike to a few other posters.
You say that 90% of my input is wrong. I congratulate you because in your case it's only 89%...
You are of course wrong that Borg is unanimously considered greater than Rosewall. In fact experts know that Rosewall has won 25 majors and Borg only 14...
70sHollywood, There were at least three truly important tournaments in 1937 and 1938: French Pro, Wembley and US Pro. We should also consider British Pro in Southport.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
Could you elaborate on this a little, please?
Yes, it has to if one wants to constantly try to force some kind of relative equivalency, meaning the assumption of at least similar ratios of importance across the distribution of events per year, which is an agenda I find to be quite intolerable because it assumes that such an equivalency exists and that we are to force it if it didn't, and that would be distortion of history. If by something you mean a group of tournaments, then I can agree that not every tournament will be of the same value but the exact distribution might be difficult to separate in some years and very easy to in others, with the obvious example being how tennis currently is, where we're all pretty much agreed that Grand Slam tournaments>>>> Masters 1000 >>>> 500 >>>> 250s.
Now there are some details, such as some placing the YEC between Slams and a Masters 1000 and some close to the same level. I believe many think winning the YEC is as hard or harder than winning a Slam yet, despite that belief, do not consider it to be an equal achievement to a Slam all things considered; it competes in its own way on draw but lacks in terms of the perception of the public, the pundits and the players and is also down on overall prize money per position attained as well as being substantially down on ranking point value. Various facets of these events makes it easy to form a stratification which is further bolstered and encouraged by the official structuring of the tour and its points system.
As we know, this can't be applied to every year and shouldn't be forced upon every year because it's dishonest.
As an experiment, we could allow all self containing "eras" to have the same total of points to give out so that we can keep comparisons strictly relative rather than imagining how our subjective impositions dictate the importance of tours overall. So I'm already forcing some asinine equivalency to then further explain something which already makes me feel dirty, especially as it means that Pro-Am split tours which existed concurrently get twice as much as the current unified open era tour.
Here, though we award the players of their tours the same value it could (obviously) be distributed in very different manners. You could have mega event that is potentially more meaningful than a modern-day GS tournaments because it's relative stature is so much greater in the time is occurred, such as maybe some World Championship Tours. You could have many more equal tournaments that never reach the relative importance of a modern-day GS tournament but are given a name anyway as to force some form of order and understanding amid chaos; this can be and has been useful.
As such you could look at some years and say that in one year a World Championship Tour is worth 2x more than a modern GS tourn. and that the single most important event from another year is worth 2x less, because of the wildly varying distributions of tournament importance even if the total amount of points on offer is the same.
Now imagine we remove the initially forced equivalency for this comparison and don't give a split era twice as many total points to win as today and let's assume the split is still 1:1 between the pro and amateur ranks. Suddenly 2x turns into 4x.
This might paint a more true picture but one that many won't like.
I think he's (pc1) suggesting that the pro majors are not as valuable as modern day GS tournaments regardless of if he tries to concoct some subjective absolute system of worth or even if he goes by distribution relative to the self contained tours of the time.
Yes, and that the players buy in and believe. They all unanimously believe the Slams to be by far the biggest and most important event. Only recent editions of the Olympic Gold really compare, which is something that was aggressively pedalled and forced by fans after Nadal won it in 2008, but has since been mirrored by a lot of the players themselves as well as the pundits and that escalates the importance of the OGames in likelilhood. There's much less uniformity on these things in many times past. So if that's how we're defining things along with various brand prestige for bands of tournaments then we're logically going to come to very different results for many years where there are huge real differences between the value of the most important events in the year.
Yes, they tried to create and establish not just importance but the extent of relative importance per event, but their outlook would not have been identical of course (to that of other times, nor necessarily within a same time).
I think we mostly agree that the pro majors were most important to the pros and that the main disagreement is on which tournaments specifically should be subject to this provocative stratification.. so which other major pro titles should be pro majors. If many tournaments are close in value overall but are not called pro majors, then we need to communicate that they were similarly important in some other way or using some other term - I don't know.
For the sake of pointing out some thoughts that come to mind, I'm going to create a scenario:
Let's suppose that the pro majors were generally the most important events around in the self-contained pro tour but that their gap over the next events is much smaller than GS tournaments to 1000s today. if (because I'm not actually suggesting we do anything yet) we equalise for the total points that can be won we run into all sorts of horribly illogical considerations.
I see massive massive problems here.
1. If there are substantially less tournaments on the pro tour in a year than there is today, you're going to have many tournaments with a points value similar to that of a current GS event despite no single tournament being as important relatively speaking.
2. If there were the same number of tournaments then having so many other tournaments relatively closer in value to pro majors causes the tour to have no tournament class that is on average remotely close to the value of an average current GS event.
3. If we assume that the raw value of a pro major is as important as a current GS event and that there were the same number of tournaments overall and we are to believe there were many more tournaments closer in importance to those pro majors, then one is going to create many more major worthy tournaments in terms of their points value than is seen in a time with more clearly defined tournament stratification.
4. Even if the pure value of a pro major is that of a current GS event and we assume that there were similar ratios of tournament importance as today, the architecture of this forcefully equivalent points system dictates that they are ascribed a much larger points value because we have to reach the same total points quota across the tours, assuming that there are many fewer tournaments: ... that they are ascribed a much smaller points value because we have to reach the same total points quota across the tours, assuming there are many more tournaments.
Why does something need to take their place...
I see a lot of things that people are wanting to do and not much of establishing what was.
Ultimately, what I'm describing is (trying) to point out the myriad of problems in trying to ascribe value to events in relation to other very different times for tennis with very different tour structures. You've argued this plenty yourself, of course.. more or less.
10000char limit.
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pc1
G.O.A.T.
Every one of his assumptions on what I believe and I am trying to do is wrong. You know from our discussions.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
One of my mandates and I think you understand this is to preserve the importance of the Old Pro Tour which to me to almost sacred. However let's not kid ourselves, to say an 8 or 16 or 32 man tournament on the Old Pro Tour is on the same tournament level as a full field Open Major is simply deceiving ourselves. If some chose to believe this it's okay with me but for statistical purposes I cannot have that. This is not disrespect, this is logic.
I place great importance on the Old Pro Tour tournaments and tours. To have someone write I disrespect the Old Pro Tour, well I don't know what to think.
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7
70sHollywood
Guest
Vines played none of those, Perry only played the US Pro in 1938. I wouldn't mind just one of those missing as with the US Pro in 1938, but Tilden, Nusslein and Stoefen all missed that tournament. You have to ask just how important they were.
NatF
Bionic Poster
I believe an 8 man Pro Major event can reasonably be rated at least alongside the YEC. I find some similarities in that they're 8 man events featuring the best players. The YEC has generally a couple more rounds but the likes of Wembley, US Pro and especially the French Pro had more BO5 - obviously the current edition of the YEC no longer has even a BO5 final.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
All logical. Thanks.
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
@Gary Duane continued...
I'm also trying to paint a picture of how coming up with various systems of equivalency or equivalents.. whatever.. is far from being automatically fair or logical or the best way of trying to compare eras. That the penchant for "fairness" and "respect" makes people delusional in subjectively sculpting some vast historical hypothetical rather than historical truth.
All of this is to say that it is possible for the most important events in one year or another to be vastly more or less important than another, and/but that there's an inbuilt forced equivalency in comparing say, a World Championship Tour, to a modern-day GS tournament. Relatively it might have been a far more important event... worth 2-3 GS tournaments, but in absolute terms given that we are using criteria such as the public, the pundits, the players, the prize money, the brand, how does one really compare to a GS tournament today in this exploded and massive open era? I could argue that it's worth half a modern GS in reality. I can also say that Federer plays better tennis than Pancho Gonzalez because it's true. It is true in the absolute sense because of racket and string technology among other things.
But there are limits. Going by how tennis has evolved and grown in popularity over various stages of its existence and using it to form judgments on the value of achievements paints a harrowing picture and only presents one truth. I do think it's important to present a sort of relative truth over time. I think that would involve trying to come to relative values of events without limits such as assuming all constituents must come to the same total or that every year has to have X amount of majors or most important events. To play it by ear as accurately as possible from year to year. Do I think a good World Championship Tour is REALLY worth only 1/2 a current Slam?
No.
Players achieve what they do in their time against their competition in their circumstances. I believe it should be honoured, naturally. But without distorting the data and by coming to the fairest and truest representations of the data and the knowledge as possible, which will include inventing some constructs --- that's inevitable, we just have to be completely honest in doing it.
Fin.
I'm also trying to paint a picture of how coming up with various systems of equivalency or equivalents.. whatever.. is far from being automatically fair or logical or the best way of trying to compare eras. That the penchant for "fairness" and "respect" makes people delusional in subjectively sculpting some vast historical hypothetical rather than historical truth.
All of this is to say that it is possible for the most important events in one year or another to be vastly more or less important than another, and/but that there's an inbuilt forced equivalency in comparing say, a World Championship Tour, to a modern-day GS tournament. Relatively it might have been a far more important event... worth 2-3 GS tournaments, but in absolute terms given that we are using criteria such as the public, the pundits, the players, the prize money, the brand, how does one really compare to a GS tournament today in this exploded and massive open era? I could argue that it's worth half a modern GS in reality. I can also say that Federer plays better tennis than Pancho Gonzalez because it's true. It is true in the absolute sense because of racket and string technology among other things.
But there are limits. Going by how tennis has evolved and grown in popularity over various stages of its existence and using it to form judgments on the value of achievements paints a harrowing picture and only presents one truth. I do think it's important to present a sort of relative truth over time. I think that would involve trying to come to relative values of events without limits such as assuming all constituents must come to the same total or that every year has to have X amount of majors or most important events. To play it by ear as accurately as possible from year to year. Do I think a good World Championship Tour is REALLY worth only 1/2 a current Slam?
No.
Players achieve what they do in their time against their competition in their circumstances. I believe it should be honoured, naturally. But without distorting the data and by coming to the fairest and truest representations of the data and the knowledge as possible, which will include inventing some constructs --- that's inevitable, we just have to be completely honest in doing it.
Fin.
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pc1
G.O.A.T.
Of course! It's a very fine line. You of course have to respect the past in tennis but not be delusional on many aspects so you can have a logical conclusion based on facts.
Incidentally I have spoken to several members of the Old Pro Tour and to say I was happy speaking to them is an understatement. I'm also very friendly with another member of the Old Pro Tour's family. I love understanding how it was in those days to get another side on tennis history.
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-NN-
G.O.A.T.
Further, with what I wrote above, it's why I think it's impossible to think of a major as being synonymous with the highest quality. It's at best synonymous with the highest quality of the time it was played as compared to the surrounding events. Therefore, I think there is no issue in calling a large branch of tournaments majors, as long as the judgment for them is consistent and logical according to the importance of the events in their time. This is more or less constant - that there's typically at least one very valuable event in any given year.
The problem is that until about 1964 the identity of the top tournaments changed from year to year.
Sedgman claimed that Wembley was the top pro tournament, and I believe that is true for 1953, the year in which Sedgman won Wembley. But in other years there were events which surpassed Wembley in importance.
The U.S. Pro was a disaster at Forest Hills in 1951, was officially removed from play until 1963 when it returned to Forest Hills, and was unofficially replaced by the Forest Hills Pro in the late fifties.
What do you do with these turns of events? It makes it impossible to simply tally up "pro majors" and get a total. The tour was chaos from year to year.
Essentially, the pro tour was about money, creating events which could sell tickets and realize the pro tennis players' ability to earn cash while they had their rather narrow window of opportunity.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
Do you have any idea of what I'm writing about?
When you do, make suggestions instead of criticisms. There is nothing that you wrote there that I already haven't taken into account or written in past posts.
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Nathaniel, Please don't create problems where there are no ones.
Your friend not only states that the pro majors should not get as many points as the modern GS tournaments (I agree with him, even though I rate them as equivalents, not as equal events!): No, he also claims that there were no pro majors at all, i.e. championships that were distinguished form other important tournaments!!
I begin to lose my respect for you because you defend posters who ignore tennis history...
Dan Lobb, Chaos is only in your mind...
91%
Just a clarification: I am not agree that tournaments are >>>> Indian Wells, Miami and Rome.
IMO Indian Wells, Miami and Rome are close to the Finals.
KG, Yes you stand at 91 %.
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