History of Masters 1000 Series?

[Bruno Santiago]

Hi Bruno,

You ask three questions.

I try to answer:
1) are the data from Wikipidia accurate? The data on Wikipedia relating to the years 70-80 are good, errors have been found but overall they are good. The biggest problem concerns the Masters 1000 where the concept has passed that there were 9 tournaments comparable to the current ones when it is not true.

2) were all those 20 * Grand Prix tournaments really equivalent? I don't know which 20 * you are referring to but I hypothesize tournaments with Prize money 175,000.00 in the years around 1977-1980.
In those years there were 4-5 bigger tournaments (Palm Spings, Las Vegas, Phila, Tokyo and Memphis) and 20 * tournaments with 175,000.00.
The 20 * are to be considered equal or almost equal (the only importance is seeding)

3) didn't they confuse today's challenger tour with the ATP 250-1000 events?
No, the 20 * are all between the current Masters 500 and Masters 1000, except for a few cases.
Among other things, it is good to remember that the challengers start from 1978.
Therefore, since 1978 all official ATP tournaments cannot be included in the challengers.
Before 1978 the circuit was more convulsive, more magmatic, but there were no challengers.
If you are interested in the period before 1978 let me know, however none of the tournaments with prize money 175.000,00 are to be considered challengers. Absolutely not.

Thanks for the rich and detailed answer KG. Very elucidative indeed.

I do have a listing of the 9 most well paid Tournaments from 1970-1989. However, its en herculean effort to determine their accuracy regarding ranking points (not sure if the 9 listed actually match on both criteria). Nevertheless, as you've already exposed in this thread, it doesn't really matter. Players did not knew there would have been only 9 (despite dated talks about it) in the future, and they had to plan a strategy to maximise points/money avoiding competition (risk/return approach).

I've tried to apply 4 different methods to resurrect Big Titles prior to 1990:
A - take all of them at face values, regardless of how many were there per year (only 2 in 1977 or 29 in 1982);
B - weight in their relative importance regarding how many took place (like 9/28 of 1989 or 9/10 of 1983)
C - rely on Ultimate Tennis Statistics to determine how many BTs were won by each player;
D - rely on my listing (can't recall exactly the source) of Top 9 most well paid and/or most prestigious 9 tournaments.

Since you are way more acknowledgeable in this regard, what would be your intake on this. Is it possible to adopt a method to rashly determine it? If so, which method (if any) would be the closest to appointing the real Big Titles Kings - a place between Grand Slam top champions and All Tournament recordists.

Thank you again, for your time and attention.

BR

 

[KG1965]

Thanks for the rich and detailed answer KG. Very elucidative indeed.

I do have a listing of the 9 most well paid Tournaments from 1970-1989. However, its en herculean effort to determine their accuracy regarding ranking points (not sure if the 9 listed actually match on both criteria). Nevertheless, as you've already exposed in this thread, it doesn't really matter. Players did not knew there would have been only 9 (despite dated talks about it) in the future, and they had to plan a strategy to maximise points/money avoiding competition (risk/return approach).

I've tried to apply 4 different methods to resurrect Big Titles prior to 1990:
A - take all of them at face values, regardless of how many were there per year (only 2 in 1977 or 29 in 1982);
B - weight in their relative importance regarding how many took place (like 9/28 of 1989 or 9/10 of 1983)
C - rely on Ultimate Tennis Statistics to determine how many BTs were won by each player;
D - rely on my listing (can't recall exactly the source) of Top 9 most well paid and/or most prestigious 9 tournaments.

Since you are way more acknowledgeable in this regard, what would be your intake on this. Is it possible to adopt a method to rashly determine it? If so, which method (if any) would be the closest to appointing the real Big Titles Kings - a place between Grand Slam top champions and All Tournament recordists.

Thank you again, for your time and attention.

BR

I must confess to you that I worked hard to figure out how to extract the 9 hypothetical Super 9, but I didn't succeed.

I don't know if it's impossible because I know that others are working on it.

IMO it is impossible to decree 9 because they are always either a higher or lower number.

It's as if in 100 years the 4 slams are gone and there will be 2 slams in Dubai and China.
And since the slams must be two, they must always have been two: consequently they would ask whoever survived who were the big 2 slams without considering the other two.

For me the only way is to divide the top 20 * tournaments into two categories: Super elite (Masters 1000) and Elite (Masters 750).

In other words for example McEnroe won 7 slams, and ... I don't know... 15 Superelite and 23 Elite

Many will disagree because in an era where you want to compare everything .. they would say but how do we compare McEnroe with Djokovic.
Simple ... compare the two champions based on that data.
On the other hand, how do you compare Djokovic v Gonzalez. With the parameters of the period 1990-2021?

With slam (which didn't count), Masters 1000 and YEC (which didn't exist)?
No, of course.
Gonzalez should be evaluated for what he has won in his period. Like Kramer, Rosewall, Tilden, Laver etc.

 

[bluetrain4]

I remember the European Community Championships being a big deal. The changes on tour is really interesting.

 

[tkramer15]

The Super 9 series only started in 1996. Even between 1990 and 1995 there were additional events with the same, sometimes even more computer points (like Stuttgart in February). The ATP has retrospectively designated those events from 1990 on as top category events, but players would not know that in the first years of the 1990s.
And before 2000 not even the Super 9 events were compulsory.
As for the events before 1990, there is no consensus, not even the ATP wants to single out certain events, because there were no such clear-cut differences between tournaments as today. What you read in Wikipedia is the personal opinion of someone who selected the Top9 events. But those choices are debatable, as the differences in prize money and computer points were much smaller between events.

While what you wrote is true, it is a misnomer that these Championship Series/Super 9 events were substantially weaker in terms of top player participation despite not being labeled "mandatory" or "compulsory." I used quotes because we know that such a mandate never truly exists. If a player is hurt or simply doesn't want to play, then he/she won't.

I will make another thread about this with the final data, but so far, research indicates that there was little difference in participation of the top 16 players at the Super 9 events from 1996-1999 compared to 2000 and after. The only two slight exceptions were not surprisingly Hamburg and Montreal/Toronto. Those events, mostly because of weather conditions and timing, were typically weaker than the other seven tournaments.