All-time players’ top performance by surface (with a constant update) (hard indoor)

[Ivan69]

My first big study was https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...om-1877-to-2020-with-a-regular-update.685425/. Now I continue with other types of studies.

The theme “performance by surface” has been always interesting to the tennis fans. The discussions go often with the numbers of slam titles and some other selectively chosen data. More interesting for me is the whole performance of the players on every surface.

Types of surfaces

Basically I split the surfaces into 4 categories:

Clay – includes clay outdoor and indoor;

Grass;

Hard outdoor – includes all hard outdoor surfaces (cement, wood, carpet and any other artificial hard surfaces)

Hard indoor - includes all hard indoor surfaces (wood, carpet, canvas and any other artificial hard surfaces)

Scope

The study covers the players from 1877 to current which have at least 1 title in their careers.

The study covers the tournaments, tours and one-night matches from 1877 to current (after Miami 2021). The tournaments include Davis cup, Nations cup, World team cup and Kramer cup.

Limits

1. Excluded from the number of titles and number of matches are the challengers, the futures and the tournaments with a scrappy competition (especially in the pre-open era). This is made intentionally to place all players on equal terms due to the different functionality, specificity and level of competitiveness of the different eras and every single year.

2. Only the players with at least 100 wins and at least 120 matches played per surface participate in the final rankings by surfaces. Only 1 exception of this rule is made – Novak Djokovic is included in the “grass” section with 95 wins and 113 total matches played on grass. He has the incredible win/loss ratio of 84.1% but has only 6 titles and practically does not affect the rankings.

This criterion has been implied because they are too many players with a limited play on a specific surface and their data distort the chief indicators.

Chief indicators

After a long consideration and analyses of the best possible methods of evaluating the surface’ performance I focused on the following indicators:

1. Number of wins per surface – shows the player’s preference and consistency on a surface;

2. Win/loss (W/L) ratio per surface – shows the level of dominance on a surface;

3. Number of titles per surface – shows the level of efficiency of reaching the target;

Methodology of evaluating the performance by surface

All the players are ranked on each of the three indicators for each surface in descending order. The total ranking is summed by the rankings of the 3 indicators and sorted in ascending order.

Example – a player is ranked 9th by w/l, 6th by wins and 10th by titles. His total ranking is 25 which compared to other players’ total rankings means for example 7th place in total rank.

Players with equal number of wins or equal number of titles get the same ranking for this indicator.

Presentation

For the best viewing options I will present the top 10 players of each indicator and the total rank’s top 10 players – 4 tables in total.

As they are too many tables (16 for all surfaces) I think it’s better that every surface will be presented in a different thread indicated in the thread’s title.

 

[Ivan69]

Hard indoor

Total regular wins on hard indoor
1. Jimmy Connors 647
2. Pancho Gonzales 622
3. John McEnroe 561
4. Rod Laver 509
5. Ken Rosewall 508
6. Pancho Segura 482
7. Ivan Lendl 474
8. Bill Tilden 443
9. Ilie Nastase 383
10. Bjorn Borg 369

* No recent changes as of 31 July 2022 in top 10.

 

[Ivan69]

Win/Loss ratio on hard indoor
1. Ivan Lendl 81,7%
2. John McEnroe 81,3%
3. Roger Federer 81,1%
4. Jean Borotra 80,6%
5. Jimmy Connors 80,1%
6. Boris Becker 80,0%
7. Novak Djokovic 78,4%
8. Jaroslav Drobny 77,3%
9. Andy Murray 76,4%
10. Arthur Ashe 76,0%

* No recent changes as of 31 July 2022 in top 10.

 

[Ivan69]

Total regular titles on hard indoor
1. Jimmy Connors 72
2. John McEnroe 70
2. Ivan Lendl 70
4. Rod Laver 54
5. Bjorn Borg 48
6. Richard Pancho Gonzales 40
7. Ken Rosewall 38
8. Boris Becker 32
9. Ilie Nastase 31
10. Arthur Ashe 30

* No recent changes as of 31 July 2022 in top 10.

 

[Ivan69]

TOTAL RANKING on hard indoor
1. John McEnroe
2. Jimmy Connors
3. Ivan Lendl
4. Rod Laver
5. Boris Becker
6. Bjorn Borg
7. Roger Federer
8. Arthur Ashe
9. Pancho Gonzales
10. Ken Rosewall

* No changes as of 31 July 2021 in top 10.

 

[Third Serve]

rip Sampras

 

[Ivan69]

rip Sampras

Pete is 15th in total ranking on indoor - 23rd by number of wins, 11th by w/l ratio and 14th by number of titles.

 

[BeatlesFan]

Total regular titles on hard indoor
1. Jimmy Connors 72
2. John McEnroe 70
2. Ivan Lendl 70

How in the world can this be accurate? Mac won 77 total career titles and 70 sure were not on indoor HC. Nor as Lendl or Connors #'s correct here. You must be including meaningless exo's in these totals. I'm unsure what "regular titles" means, but one would presume that means ATP events.

Peruse Ivan's total titles and explain how on earth you came up with him having won 70 titles on "hard indoor." Whatever "exclusions" or parameters you invented are irrelevant, these are the facts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Lendl_career_statistics

 

[Ivan69]

How in the world can this be accurate? Mac won 77 total career titles and 70 sure were not on indoor HC. Nor as Lendl or Connors #'s correct here. You must be including meaningless exo's in these totals. I'm unsure what "regular titles" means, but one would presume that means ATP events.

Yep, it's correct. Mac won 108 titles, out of them 104 regular titles (4 weak tournaments). 70 were indoors.
No "meaningless exos". ATP number is not correct if you cite it. The tour in the 80s was not united. Many big highly-prized tournaments were held out of ATP.
The same is with Lendl, Connors and many other.

 

[Ivan69]

Peruse Ivan's total titles and explain how on earth you came up with him having won 70 titles on "hard indoor." Whatever "exclusions" or parameters you invented are irrelevant, these are the facts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Lendl_career_statistics

Forget Wiki. It's wrong. No "exclusions" or whatever. Real data.

 

[JaoSousa]

Very well done.

 

[MichaelNadal]

 

[Gizo]

Yep, it's correct. Mac won 108 titles, out of them 104 regular titles (4 weak tournaments). 70 were indoors.
No "meaningless exos". ATP number is not correct if you cite it. The tour in the 80s was not united. Many big highly-prized tournaments were held out of ATP.
The same is with Lendl, Connors and many other.

Lendl being officially credited with 'only' 94 titles including 42 indoors (obviously though still an insane number) is one of the most misleading stats around in terms of players that exclusively played in the open era, when he clearly won many more than that. His body of work at unsanctioned events was pretty unrivalled, so he is an even bigger victim of having an understated title count than Connors or McEnroe.

Ignoring all 4 man invitational events, I previously counted at least 30 additional titles that he won, in which he had to play in 4 or 5 matches (and my list is likely to be incomplete as well), 17 of which were indoors.

Of course it goes without saying that 'ranking points' is not a factor in terms of what should count and what shouldn't, with the Masters / YEC not awarding any ranking points before 1990 (and it was still a more highly regarded tournament then than it has been in recent times), the WCT Finals and WCT events also not counting for ATP rankings etc.

The ECC in Antwerp (which Lendl won 5 times) looked to be a more highly regarded tournament in the 80s when it was an unofficial invitational tournament, than it was in the 90s after 1991 when it was an official ATP tournament. The Toronto Indoor event at Maple Leaf Gardens was a bigger deal when it was an invitational tournament from 1981-1984 (Lendl won it twice during that period), than when it was an 'official' grand prix / ATP tour event in the mid-80s / 1990 (when Lendl won it again). Of course there was a big difference between a proper invitational tournament (many of which had packed crowds, great fields and more prize money on offer than most / many official tour events) and a hit and giggle exhibition.

 

[Ivan69]

Lendl being officially credited with 'only' 94 titles including 42 indoors (obviously though still an insane number) is one of the most misleading stats around in terms of players that exclusively played in the open era, when he clearly won many more than that. His body of work at unsanctioned events was pretty unrivalled, so he is an even bigger victim of having an understated title count than Connors or McEnroe.

Ignoring all 4 man invitational events, I previously counted at least 30 additional titles that he won, in which he had to play in 4 or 5 matches (and my list is likely to be incomplete as well), 17 of which were indoors.

Of course it goes without saying that 'ranking points' is not a factor in terms of what should count and what shouldn't, with the Masters / YEC not awarding any ranking points before 1990 (and it was still a more highly regarded tournament then than it has been in recent times), the WCT Finals and WCT events also not counting for ATP rankings etc.

The ECC in Antwerp (which Lendl won 5 times) looked to be a more highly regarded tournament in the 80s when it was an unofficial invitational tournament, than it was in the 90s after 1991 when it was an official ATP tournament. The Toronto Indoor event at Maple Leaf Gardens was a bigger deal when it was an invitational tournament from 1981-1984 (Lendl won it twice during that period), than when it was an 'official' grand prix / ATP tour event in the mid-80s / 1990 (when Lendl won it again). Of course there was a big difference between a proper invitational tournament (many of which had packed crowds, great fields and more prize money on offer than most / many official tour events) and a hit and giggle exhibition.

So it was. The problem is not only the ranking points for Masters. They were too many tournaments not been counted by ATP.
The conclusion is one - nobody shall use the ATP data for the past players. The picture is very different.

 

[Sport]

Scope? Limits? Methodology? Relax, it's a forum message, not a scientific paper published in Science or Nature.

 

[Ivan69]

Scope? Limits? Methodology? Relax, it's a forum message, not a scientific paper published in Science or Nature.

It's a matter of normal transparency to explain the way of reaching of some sensitive results. The usual way of posting somebody's "views" or "ideas" does not respond to the objective evaluation of the game.
Secondly, it's my believe that the readers need to know the methods applied when analysing the info or making some conclusions. A normal practice should be that every info or statement is defendable and hardly backed-up.

 

[tonylg]

Yep, it's correct. Mac won 108 titles, out of them 104 regular titles (4 weak tournaments). 70 were indoors.
No "meaningless exos". ATP number is not correct if you cite it. The tour in the 80s was not united. Many big highly-prized tournaments were held out of ATP.
The same is with Lendl, Connors and many other.

Whilst I don't agree with lumping everything indoors into the same category, nor last and this century grass .. the ATP didn't exist before the late 80s and Lendl in particular was not a fan of it's inception. Turns out, he was right.

 

[Ivan69]

Whilst I don't agree with lumping everything indoors into the same category, nor last and this century grass .. the ATP didn't exist before the late 80s and Lendl in particular was not a fan of it's inception. Turns out, he was right.

Sure, there is a difference b/w the indoor surfaces. And I have them different in my database. But I doubt that someone would be interested specifically on carpet, wood, hard or other. In addition, too many sub-surfaces might dilute the results and conclusions as many players have played on multiple indoor surfaces.

Disagree about the grass. It's too petty to discuss types and mixtures of grass.

Not only Lendl was angry. Jimbo, Mac and other were too.

 

[stringertom]

Total regular titles on hard indoor
1. Jimmy Connors 72
2. John McEnroe 70
2. Ivan Lendl 70
4. Rod Laver 54
5. Bjorn Borg 48
6. Richard Pancho Gonzales 40
7. Ken Rosewall 38
8. Boris Becker 32
9. Ilie Nastase 31
10. Arthur Ashe 30

Big error at #2. JMac did not win 70 indoor titles unless you are including doubles. His total titles in singles are 77; without dissecting that list in detail I can safely say the seven title discrepancy according to your claim would have to be the 7 slams he won. Now, if your numbers were right that would mean that JMac’s name isn’t on other outdoor tournament trophies like Rogers Cup, Queens, Los Angeles, and even the one I saw him win at Forest Hills on Har-Tru in 1984.

 

[Third Serve]

Scope? Limits? Methodology? Relax, it's a forum message, not a scientific paper published in Science or Nature.

lol is this the guy who keeps going on about "logico-methodological analysis" as if forum messages are legal arguments?

 

[Ivan69]

Big error at #2. JMac did not win 70 indoor titles unless you are including doubles. His total titles in singles are 77; without dissecting that list in detail I can safely say the seven title discrepancy according to your claim would have to be the 7 slams he won. Now, if your numbers were right that would mean that JMac’s name isn’t on other outdoor tournament trophies like Rogers Cup, Queens, Los Angeles, and even the one I saw him win at Forest Hills on Har-Tru in 1984.

Nope. No error. No doubles. Already responded to that in post No 9.
Forget about ATP data or wiki. It's healthier.

 

[stringertom]

Nope. No error. No doubles. Already responded to that in post No 9.
Forget about ATP data or wiki. It's healthier.

Agree to disagree on the mentally “healthier” status in this discussion.

 

[Ivan69]

Agree to disagree on the mentally “healthier” status in this discussion.

Well, that's not so important. Important is the real history of the past players but not what ATP say. They deserve it.

 

[stringertom]

Well, that's not so important. Important is the real history of the past players but not what ATP say. They deserve it.

Best place for your insanity is my ignore list.

 

[Third Serve]

Best place for your insanity is my ignore list.

lol that's harsh

 

[stringertom]

lol that's harsh

You did see he claims it’s healthier to accept his stats as factual? That kind of fanaticism is how QAnon and MyPillow Big Lie stuff has poisoned humanity.

 

[Third Serve]

You did see he claims it’s healthier to accept his stats as factual? That kind of fanaticism is how QAnon and MyPillow Big Lie stuff has poisoned humanity.

I mean, I wouldn't exactly equate counting different tourney wins for players besides the official ATP tournaments and actual dangerous stuff like QAnon but you do you I guess.

 

[Ivan69]

You did see he claims it’s healthier to accept his stats as factual? That kind of fanaticism is how QAnon and MyPillow Big Lie stuff has poisoned humanity.

Fanaticism??? Ha. Real matches stand behind the stats. I am able to discuss every of Mac's 100+ titles.
It's an another question if you want to accept it or not.

 

[Ivan69]

I mean, I wouldn't exactly equate counting different tourney wins for players besides the official ATP tournaments and actual dangerous stuff like QAnon but you do you I guess.

I wont argue. Let me just mention that tournaments like Challenge of Champions, Mazda Challenge, Toronto Indoor, European ch., Akai Challenge, Marlboro cup, Grand Slam cup and other were top tournaments with top field and biiiiiig money, often with more money than the slams.
In fact it was a purely political non-sport decision of ATP which tournaments to include and which to exclude in these years.
It's my view that the players do not have to suffer from any political decisions.

 

[tonylg]

I wont argue. Let me just mention that tournaments like Challenge of Champions, Mazda Challenge, Toronto Indoor, European ch., Akai Challenge, Marlboro cup, Grand Slam cup and other were top tournaments with top field and biiiiiig money, often with more money than the slams.
In fact it was a purely political non-sport decision of ATP which tournaments to include and which to exclude in these years.
It's my view that the players do not have to suffer from any political decisions.

I remember those tournaments and others. As McEnroe is being discussed, do his Custom Credit Sydney Indoor titles get included in the "official" records or not? If not, then I 100% agree the official records are nonesense.

 

[stringertom]

I mean, I wouldn't exactly equate counting different tourney wins for players besides the official ATP tournaments and actual dangerous stuff like QAnon but you do you I guess.

Yes, I will “do me” whenever someone prescribes their agenda as being healthier for me. There’s way too much crazy out there to expose myself to this shenanigan too.

 

[stringertom]

I remember those tournaments and others. As McEnroe is being discussed, do his Custom Credit Sydney Indoor titles get included in the "official" records or not? If not, then I 100% agree the official records are nonesense.

Sydney titles (4x) are on his ATP resume that total 77 career crowns.

 

[Ivan69]

I remember those tournaments and others. As McEnroe is being discussed, do his Custom Credit Sydney Indoor titles get included in the "official" records or not? If not, then I 100% agree the official records are nonesense.

Sydney is in. Other are not.

 

[Gizo]

Yes it's safe to say that the ATP records are not particularly great.

A lot of their historical service stats are wrong, as several other posters have pointed out many times, including counting aces and double faults twice.

They've gotten tournament surfaces wrong in the past. One that I pointed out myself, was that numerous North American tournaments played on har-tru / green clay during much of the 70s were wrongly listed as being played on hard courts, including the Canadian Open and Cincinnati which only switched to hard courts in 1979, tournaments at Boca Raton, Virginia Beach etc.

For quite a while, I'm pretty sure that the ATP didn't count the Pepsi Grand Slam as an 'official tournament' in players' records before it was later added, and the same goes for quite a few other tournaments as well. I'm sure those of us who followed matches and players' progress at the ECC in Antwerp, Challenge of Champions in Chicago, Toronto indoor tournament in Maple Leaf Gardens etc. at the time, including Lendl's bid in 1985 to win the diamond racket in Antwerp, certainly thought that those matches 'counted'.

Guillermo Vilas was credited with a 50 match winning streak at the time in 1977, not a 46 match winning streak, which included 4 wins at a tournament in Rye in August of that year. ATP records from 1990 onwards are not exactly perfect, and their records for seasons prior to that should often be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[D.Nalby12]

To me Roger is best indoor hard courter. Unfortunately there are not enough indoor events - no indoor Slam. Otherwise Fed would have won 2-3 more easily.

 

[urban]

Most indoor events in the 1970s and 1980s were on carpet or synthetic grass, not on hard court. I must say, i don't understand the modern description of indoor hard court. I would prefer the clear distinction between (outdoor) hard and indoor event (minus explicitely indoor clay in Davs Cup), which makes the real difference, because the weather element (sun, wind etc.) is excluded indoors.
The reason, why the ATP originally did nor recognize all invitational or tour end events for their current computer rankings, is grounded in the fact, that The ATP was a players union. Every member should have access to all events, and that was not the case in invitationals or tour playoffs. And the weekly computer ranking was made primarily for the participation and seeding process of all ATP events world wide, not for the world ranking per se.
The later recognition of ATP events by the Ponte Vedra ATP stats committee is a different matter. There, the ATP archivist Greg Sharko never was consequent, so the Pepsi Grand Slam got recognition, although it was only a four men or 8 men invitational. It had much prestige, publicity (and prize money) then, as had - as written above - the Antwerp, Frankfurt, Milan, Forest Hills or Toronto and some others events.

 

[Ivan69]

Most indoor events in the 1970s and 1980s were on carpet or synthetic grass, not on hard court. I must say, i don't understand the modern description of indoor hard court. I would prefer the clear distinction between (outdoor) hard and indoor event (minus explicitely indoor clay in Davs Cup), which makes the real difference, because the weather element (sun, wind etc.) is excluded indoors.
The reason, why the ATP originally did nor recognize all invitational or tour end events for their current computer rankings, is grounded in the fact, that The ATP was a players union. Every member should have access to all events, and that was not the case in invitationals or tour playoffs. And the weekly computer ranking was made primarily for the participation and seeding process of all ATP events world wide, not for the world ranking per se.
The later recognition of ATP events by the Ponte Vedra ATP stats committee is a different matter. There, the ATP archivist Greg Sharko never was consequent, so the Pepsi Grand Slam got recognition, although it was only a four men or 8 men invitational. It had much prestige, publicity (and prize money) then, as had - as written above - the Antwerp, Frankfurt, Milan, Forest Hills or Toronto and some others events.

Fully understandable is that some tournaments were invitational. The organizers, the sponsors, the public, the media want to see the best players on the field. Adding to that also the top money these tournaments were nothing else than a good copy of the year-end finals (Masters). Even more they were a better copy because they were primarily in round-robin formats while Masters was back then in a knock-out format. Such formats were the preferred formats for players, audience, TV etc. They just bring more money and more value.

I think that ATP could have been more flexible adapting to the pulse of time and supporting such highly attractive tournaments. Many players and especially the top guys Jimbo, Mac, Lendl, Borg accepted that as one of the biggest challenges in their careers to play each other, to prove their superiority vs the other top.

In addition to that, it looks to me very weird the policy of not awarding points for the Masters. It was a sanctioned event, it was a top event, it offered big money. No logic.
Grand slam cup didn't get a sanction during its whole life. The explanation that it was competitive to the Masters is not relevant to me. Both tournaments could have been viable in the name of the tennis, in the name of the fans, TV, audience.
European ch. has been a top event for years. It had a normal draw. But has been sanctioned 10 years after the start.
River Oaks and Kent ch., tournaments with a long long history, never got a sanction.
Boston (the so called US pro) lost its sanction for many years.

Too many illogical actions by ATP. The players don't deserve that. They deserve to live all their glory. The fans need to respect their full glory but not a limited one.

 

[Ivan69]

Unfortunately there are not enough indoor events

The amount of indoor events is not the crucial factor. Fed played 86 indoor tournaments and won 27 (31%). The efficiency is also important.

 

[Ivan69]

Yes it's safe to say that the ATP records are not particularly great.

A lot of their historical service stats are wrong, as several other posters have pointed out many times, including counting aces and double faults twice.

They've gotten tournament surfaces wrong in the past. One that I pointed out myself, was that numerous North American tournaments played on har-tru / green clay during much of the 70s were wrongly listed as being played on hard courts, including the Canadian Open and Cincinnati which only switched to hard courts in 1979, tournaments at Boca Raton, Virginia Beach etc.

For quite a while, I'm pretty sure that the ATP didn't count the Pepsi Grand Slam as an 'official tournament' in players' records before it was later added, and the same goes for quite a few other tournaments as well. I'm sure those of us who followed matches and players' progress at the ECC in Antwerp, Challenge of Champions in Chicago, Toronto indoor tournament in Maple Leaf Gardens etc. at the time, including Lendl's bid in 1985 to win the diamond racket in Antwerp, certainly thought that those matches 'counted'.

Guillermo Vilas was credited with a 50 match winning streak at the time in 1977, not a 46 match winning streak, which included 4 wins at a tournament in Rye in August of that year. ATP records from 1990 onwards are not exactly perfect, and their records for seasons prior to that should often be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yep, you are correct. As a result we all need to respect the full careers of the players. They show us at best what really happened in the past.

 

[Waspsting]

For quite a while, I'm pretty sure that the ATP didn't count the Pepsi Grand Slam as an 'official tournament' in players' records before it was later added...

According to commentary from a match at the event, the 4 players with the best results at the Grand Slam Events for the year (or the previous one) qualified for this event. Not sure if they counted the Australian Open

I'm guessing that they needed to qualify is why it was retrospectively given official status. As opposed to simple invitationals like Suntory or Antwerp where organizers were completely free on who to invite or exclude

 

[Ivan69]

According to commentary from a match at the event, the 4 players with the best results at the Grand Slam Events for the year (or the previous one) qualified for this event. Not sure if they counted the Australian Open

I'm guessing that they needed to qualify is why it was retrospectively given official status. As opposed to simple invitationals like Suntory or Antwerp where organizers were completely free on who to invite or exclude

In fact not the 4 players with the best results at the slams for the previous year but the winners. If a player had 2 titles out of 4 or if a winner had an injury, another player had been invited.
For example, in 1977 Orantes played while he has no slam titles for 1976. He was invited as the winner of 1975 US because Borg won Wim and WCT. The 4 reviewed tournaments this year were Wim, US, French and WCT.
In 1978 the 4 reviewed tournaments were Wim, US, French and AO 2 for 1977. As Vilas was injured he was replaced by Gottfried, the finalist on RG.
As Borg won 2 slams in 1978, for the 1979 edition Mac was invited as the winner of Masters.

 

[urban]

The BBC 2 pro event at Wembley in the early open era and the Pepsi Grand Slam in the late 1970s were important 4 men events (otherwise i am not a big fan of those events in open era, in the pro era the touring situation was different), regarding publicity, tv coverage, money. In May of 1969 BBC 2 used a similar formula as Pepsi later: Laver was the actual Wim and AO champ, Rosewall the RG champ, Okker the USO finalist, and Roche the Wim finalist (with Ashe still amateur). The Grand Slam Cup in the 1990s was completely constructed around the Slam results. But as a rivalling ITF event is was never sanctioned nor mentioned by the ATP.

 

[Ivan69]

The BBC 2 pro event at Wembley in the early open era and the Pepsi Grand Slam in the late 1970s were important 4 men events (otherwise i am not a big fan of those events), regarding publicity, tv coverage, money. In May of 1969 BBC 2 used a similar formula as Pepsi later: Laver was the actual Wim and AO champ, Rosewall the RG champ, Okker the USO finalist, and Roche the Wim finalist (with Ashe still amateur). The Grand Slam Cup in the 1990s was completely constructed around the Slam results. But as a rivalling ITF event is was never sanctioned nor mentioned by the ATP.

Yep. That was. GSC was recently recognized (after 30 years!!!) but so what. No points, no change of ranking.

 

[Gizo]

According to commentary from a match at the event, the 4 players with the best results at the Grand Slam Events for the year (or the previous one) qualified for this event. Not sure if they counted the Australian Open

I'm guessing that they needed to qualify is why it was retrospectively given official status. As opposed to simple invitationals like Suntory or Antwerp where organizers were completely free on who to invite or exclude

I think rather than an official 'qualification process', the organisers of the Pepsi Grand Slam, selected the players that won the majors (including the WCT Finals and / or Masters where appropriate) for their tournament, so it was still an invitational in that sense. In a chaotic tennis circuit with so many competing organisations, it served a purpose and bridged things together. With greater prize money awarded to the 4 players in that tournament than to all 128 players combined in a Wimbledon or US Open draw, unsurprisingly the top players were very happy to play there ! Connors earned a lot more money after finishing as the runner-up to Borg in the 1977 Pepsi Grand Slam, than he did after beating Borg in the 1976 US Open final.

I believe that Antwerp invited players that had won tournament titles in Europe during that season, so it also had selection criteria in that sense, and excellent fields.

The WCT Invitational and WCT Challenge Cup were also example of tournaments that were previously not counted by ATP at least 15 years ago or so, before being later recognised. I noted that Borg's 1979 WCT Challenge Cup title in 1979 and WCT Invitational title in Salisbury in 1980 were eventually added to his ATP records. Also I'm pretty that his 1974 Auckland title (his first 'official' title) wasn't recognised by the ATP in the mid 00s, and also eventually added as well - that was bizarre given that Auckland is an active ATP tournament with a very long-standing history.

Regarding Antwerp, I remember watching coverage of the the 1985 final (more than 141,000 people attended the tournament that week) between Lendl and McEnroe. Donald Dell called it the 'biggest indoor tournament in the world'. His co-commentator also said:

'Of their 30 matches, this may be the one that everyone remembers where Lendl clearly established himself as the no. 1 player in the world'.

Even excluding the diamond racket worth $1 million that Lendl walked away with after winning the tournament for the 3rd time in 5 years (in the fact the 3rd time in 4 years so he had 1 year to spare), his cheque just for winning that year's tournament alone was $200,000. That was more than he earned after winning the US Open ($187,500), WCT Finals ($150,000) or Masters ($100,000) that year, and more than Becker or Wilander earned after winning Wimbledon or RG respectively. I think that was the biggest prize in monetary value that any player had ever earned in tennis history at the time, so no wonder he was so happy ! Antwerp in the 80s not being 'counted' does seem ludicrous to me.

 

[Deleted member 771911]

Thanks! Great stats. Lendl

 

[Deleted member 770948]

The best clay indoor performance ever-

And that bagel was full of great points, as Djokovic was in-form but Nadal had an answer for everything.

 

[Ivan69]

I think rather than an official 'qualification process', the organisers of the Pepsi Grand Slam, selected the players that won the majors (including the WCT Finals and / or Masters where appropriate) for their tournament, so it was still an invitational in that sense.

Invitational meant to be inviting players without any criteria, just choosing attractive players who get the attention of the audience, TV.
Pepsi Grand slam did not invite players (names). It attracted the winners whoever they are of 4 specific tournaments. They invited other players only when a winner was injured or if a player won more than 1 title of those 4. Even then their invitation was logical - a finalist on slam or winner of Masters.

 

[Gizo]

Invitational meant to be inviting players without any criteria, just choosing attractive players who get the attention of the audience, TV.
Pepsi Grand slam did not invite players (names). It attracted the winners whoever they are of 4 specific tournaments. They invited other players only when a winner was injured or if a player won more than 1 title of those 4. Even then their invitation was logical - a finalist on slam or winner of Masters.

Well it's being pedantic, but I think where organisers use any form of selection criteria to decide which players are allowed / to be enticed into their tournaments with small, select fields, that's an invitational, whether it's players who won majors the year before (Pepsi Grand Slam), players who won titles in Europe that year (Antwerp), players based on their rankings (Challenge of Champions), big-name players in general (numerous other events) etc.

In 1977 Bud Collins said about the tournament 'Just one of those four-man holdups so profitable to the top players and their agents, and infuriating to the promoters of legit tournaments which are undermined by such scrimmages'. One of the participants Panatta said about it. 'Grand Slam is fun, yes/ Maybe it can be No. 1 of four-man exhibitions. But for history title? Never.'.

I knew at the time that it was a very big deal, that was inevitable given the huge prize money on offer. Borg beating Connors in the 1977 final after losing their last 7 matches (including one in Caracas in 1976) was incredibly important for the dynamic of their rivalry, not to mention he was understandably thrilled about his huge winners' cheque, which exceeded his combined winner's prize money from both the WCT Finals and Wimbledon the previous year I've never had a problem with the tournament eventually being counted by the ATP, but I think that it should have opened the door for a larger number of events, notably ones like Antwerp, the Challenge of Champions etc, to be counted as well.

Another event that the ATP eventually recognised during the past 10-15 years was the World Invitational Tennis Classic (WITC), with Borg's 1976 and 1977 titles in Hilton Head also being added to his 'official title records'. I think this official title count increased from 57 to 66 within a few years.

 

[Ivan69]

Well it's being pedantic, but I think where organisers use any form of selection criteria to decide which players are allowed / to be enticed into their tournaments with small, select fields, that's an invitational, whether it's players who won majors the year before (Pepsi Grand Slam), players who won titles in Europe that year (Antwerp), players based on their rankings (Challenge of Champions), big-name players in general (numerous other events) etc.

All current tournaments and most of the past tournaments have / had selection criteria for players' participation. The main criteria is the ranking, using also an "invitational" element like wild cards. That does not mean they are invitational.

PGS was a kind of a rewarding tournament where the winners of 4 big tournaments were permitted (rewarded) to play in the rich tournament. Similar rewarding tournament is the ATP finals (Masters previously). The players know from the beginning of the year that they could target the top places and even they are not reaching the 1st, 2nd place they could take the top 8 places and participate in the rich tournament. I can say that neither PGS nor ATP finals were/are invitationals. They were/are purely based on accomplishments.

Typical invitationals in the 70s and 80s were the tournaments where no selection criteria has been applied but just personal invitations. Such were Club Obras, Hamburg indoor, Frankfurt indoor, Aix-en-Provence Invitational, Stuttgart cup, Sao Paulo cup, Brussels Inv. etc.

Antwerp is a different story. It was a sort of "semi-invitational" if I may say so. It had an official selection criterion which was "the best indoor players in the world". I am not sure if this criterion has been strictly kept. I haven't seen any official "indoor ranking" by them for the year in order to choose "the best indoor players". But it's possible that they prepared some rankings for internal use !!!
Re the big money of Antwerp a journalist has said: "The best players are in Belgium, the other will fight for Australian Open."

I agree for Ch of Champions. It didn't always include the best 8 ATP players. It offered a huge money but in my opinion had some disadvantage have been held in the first days after New Year.

 

[Waspsting]

Another event that the ATP eventually recognised during the past 10-15 years was the World Invitational Tennis Classic (WITC), with Borg's 1976 and 1977 titles in Hilton Head also being added to his 'official title records'.

That one's considered official now?

As far as I tell, final standings took into consideration a doubles match, a mixed doubles match, on top of the 4 man singles event. and a woman could win the event too. Is that right?

Odd one to give official status to