Interesting alltime stats on clay legends

[urban]

I recently saw on the webside
www.thetennisbase.com
a summary on alltime clay legends. The webside was mentioned by vegito, and has quite comprehensive stats and data on alltime Tennis. Although i hadn't the time to doublecheck all stats from my own sources, it seems very well studied, and gives stats and rankings on surfaces and overall rankings. I think they have an alltime ranking based on an own formula with Laver leading Rosewall, Federer, Tilden, Lendl, Djokovic, Gonzalez, Nadal, Connors, Sampras.
Now they gave the percentages of clay legends, and have to me surprising results. We know Nadal, who has 91,38% and Borg, who ranks at 85,89% on clay, but in the lead are people from the first half of the 20th century, who may surprise many including me (look at the exact stats there under the blog Legends on clay):
1 Reggie Doherty 98,38%, lost only 1 match on clay
2 Wilding 96.01 % from an astounding 326 played/313 won
3 Kumagae
4 Laurie Doherty
5 Parker 91.89 from an even more astounding 391/367
6. Nadal
8 Mayes
9 Lacoste
10 Riggs

I must say, i never read of Mayes from Canada. What impresses me from the Stone Age (pre ww1), is Wildings tally, who won a ton on European clay, while the Dohertys played more sporadic n the Riviera circuit. From the post ww 2 players i like especially Frankie Parker, who was a real force on clay wth an abolute sensational clay record. I knew, that he won 2 RGs and had a very long career, playing DC in 1937 and even playing Ashe at USO in 1968. Maybe some Posters know better those pre ww1 players, to get more context for those stats. But it seems to be a really good datebase here.

 

[krosero]

Urban thanks for this. It's impressive how many matches they've been able to document. I'm finding matches there that I've never seen in any source, like the individual scores of the Vines-Stoefen series of '36.

Just a wealth of information there and impressively compiled. I hope there's a way to search Games Won percentages by season, though it wouldn't be hard to calculate from their match lists.

 

[Limpinhitter]

I ran across this website a few months ago, but, didn't sign up for access. I'd be interested to hear how close its data is to that of the TT stats wonks.

 

[krosero]

I've only just seen the site today so I can't say exactly, but the stats look very good. The match records for Rosewall and Laver look quite close to those produced by Andrew Tas whose stats are the most comprehensive, for those two players.

But they may not have done a straight dump from Andrew's data. One score in the 1960 world series is given as a Rosewall win over Gonzalez; it was actually a win over Olmedo, as Andrew has. Some of Andrew's matches between Rosewall and Gonzalez in 59 are missing. They have the Saudi Arabia matches that I discovered in 57 but they don't have all of my new findings for Budge in 1937-38. On the other hand they have a couple of exos for Budge in 38 that I never found.

That's just minor stuff. The figures for Vines 31 season are a significant undercount however.

Yet they have stuff like a list of scores for all of Pancho Gonzalez's matches in the 1954 world series. I don't know if it's a complete list but it's amazing that they have that data at all.

They have lists of Gorgo's amateur matches as well. I know such lists were published by American Lawn Tennis but as far as I know this site is the first to put them online.

The pre-WW1 data, others will have to speak to.

 

[urban]

The stats look indeed quite solid on first glance, given the difficult source situation we have in Tennis history, where so many data holes still have to be closed, and all statisticans always live on a slippery path. Some discrepancies in the tally count of tournament wins of say Laver, Rosewall or Borg wins could be caused by the heuristic question of tournament or exhibition.
I must say i am am still surprised, if not to say shocked by the count of clay match wins (367) and clay tournament wins (49) of Frank Parker, who was from Polish upbringing and a perennial factor even on grass, where he even challenged peak Kramer severely for the 1947 Forest Hills crown. I knew before that Drobny and Patty won a ton of Amateur clay events at the Riviera, in Egypt and at other places. I myself had always big problems to identify clay tournaments in the US and Europe or Australia, because the common name was hard court event then, which led to a confusion with real cement events. Now, I found in Sutters book a tally of 24 Parker wins, most, but not all on clay. Sutter covers the 1946 and afterwards period, so it could well be, that some Parker wins before or during the War, are missing. Going by Sutter, Parker won a lot at Mexico and South America, where clay indeed was the common surface. Parker also won RG twice on only two tries 1948 and 49, and Monte Carlo once 1949. If he really won 367 clay matches for a 91.98% he needs dramatic re-evaluation for his clay status. Still 367 match wins on clay could be a bit high against 49 clay tournament wins, given that not all clay tournaments had 7 rounds.

 

[krosero]

It looks like Tennis Base has a full record of the 1954 championship tour. I found a newspaper report with Kramer's published figures at the end of the tour. Gonzalez’s combined win/loss against everyone was 85-41. And that's exactly what Tennis Base has for him, with full scores, dates and locations.

Just a treasure of information at that site.

 

[Limpinhitter]

You know, I hate to throw water on this flame, and this may sound trivial to some, but, I noticed that this site has Laver listed at 1.73 meters tall and Rosewall at 1.75 meters tall. Whatever might be said about these two players, two things that cannot be correctly said are that Ken Rosewall was 5'9", or, that he was taller than Laver. Did they lift this from the ATP site notorious for its errors? As immaterial as this may be concerning the infinitely fascinating issues of tennis greatness and players' relative place in tennis history, in my view, this kind of error puts a taint of doubt on all of the information found on this site.

 

[timnz]

I recently saw on the webside
www.thetennisbase.com
a summary on alltime clay legends. The webside was mentioned by vegito, and has quite comprehensive stats and data on alltime Tennis. Although i hadn't the time to doublecheck all stats from my own sources, it seems very well studied, and gives stats and rankings on surfaces and overall rankings. I think they have an alltime ranking based on an own formula with Laver leading Rosewall, Federer, Tilden, Lendl, Djokovic, Gonzalez, Nadal, Connors, Sampras.
Now they gave the percentages of clay legends, and have to me surprising results. We know Nadal, who has 91,38% and Borg, who ranks at 85,89% on clay, but in the lead are people from the first half of the 20th century, who may surprise many including me (look at the exact stats there under the blog Legends on clay):
1 Reggie Doherty 98,38%, lost only 1 match on clay
2 Wilding 96.01 % from an astounding 326 played/313 won
3 Kumagae
4 Laurie Doherty
5 Parker 91.89 from an even more astounding 391/367
6. Nadal
8 Mayes
9 Lacoste
10 Riggs

I must say, i never read of Mayes from Canada. What impresses me from the Stone Age (pre ww1), is Wildings tally, who won a ton on European clay, while the Dohertys played more sporadic n the Riviera circuit. From the post ww 2 players i like especially Frankie Parker, who was a real force on clay wth an abolute sensational clay record. I knew, that he won 2 RGs and had a very long career, playing DC in 1937 and even playing Ashe at USO in 1968. Maybe some Posters know better those pre ww1 players, to get more context for those stats. But it seems to be a really good datebase here.

Very surprised to not see Drobny there given that he has won more clay tournaments than anyone in history (at least 93)

 

[Phoenix1983]

Interesting stats.

I'd never heard of Kumagae either. Seems like Japan produced several strong players in the early years when tennis was competed for at an international level.

 

[PDJ]

I imagine Evert and Lenglen have major clay stats on the women's side.

 

[urban]

Maybe Drobny had not the high percentage like others, but it is correct, he and Patty, and Sturgess too were excellent clay courters.. Seems that many US stars of the 30s, 40s and 50s played and won more on clay, than i thought before. Besides Parker, also Riggs, Budge, Tilden, Kovacs, Lott and Flam all have very good stats on clay. On the data base Tilden has 648 matches on clay with an excellent 554 wins.

 

[pc1]

Maybe Drobny had not the high percentage like others, but it is correct, he and Patty, and Sturgess too were excellent clay courters.. Seems that many US stars of the 30s, 40s and 50s played and won more on clay, than i thought before. Besides Parker, also Riggs, Budge, Tilden, Kovacs, Lott and Flam all have very good stats on clay. On the data base Tilden has 648 matches on clay with an excellent 554 wins.

I' m not surprised about Riggs. He was well known for his expertise on clay. Parker of course was well known for being a great clay player so I think that also shows how strong Pancho Gonzalez could be when he defeated Parker in the final of the US Clay Courts in the late 1940s.

 

[urban]

Yes pc1. Riggs was a real allcourt player. I think his rival in the late 30s was Don McNeill, another good US clay courter, who won RG and had some tough battles with von Cramm. Adding Trabert and Larsen to that group, you have a formidable line of US clay courters in that time frame. I am still surprised, that in the US so many events were held on clay, i thought, that the more common surfaces were cement (in California) and grass (on the East Coast).

 

[BTURNER]

I imagine Evert and Lenglen have major clay stats on the women's side.

You'd have to add Wills and Connolly to that list at least. Losses were very rare with those three amateur women. We know that Evert was at 95% career w/loss on clay.

 

[pc1]

You know, I hate to throw water on this flame, and this may sound trivial to some, but, I noticed that this site has Laver listed at 1.73 meters tall and Rosewall at 1.75 meters tall. Whatever might be said about these two players, two things that cannot be correctly said are that Ken Rosewall was 5'9", or, that he was taller than Laver. Did they lift this from the ATP site notorious for its errors? As immaterial as this may be concerning the infinitely fascinating issues of tennis greatness and players' relative place in tennis history, in my view, this kind of error puts a taint of doubt on all of the information found on this site.

Rosewall was 5'7" and Laver 5'9" when they were younger. Laver was clearly taller. I would guess they are shorter than that now.

 

[Limpinhitter]

Rosewall was 5'7" and Laver 5'9" when they were younger. Laver was clearly taller. I would guess they are shorter than that now.

I'm just saying that, after spending some time marveling at all of the amazing stats compiled on this site, I was disappointed to see that obvious error. It's not a particularly important stat, but, it is an obvious error and it creates doubt as to the reliability of the other stats on this site.

 

[pc1]

I'm just saying that, after spending some time marveling at all of the amazing stats compiled on this site, I was disappointed to see that obvious error. It's not a particularly important stat, but, it is an obvious error and it creates doubt as to the reliability of the other stats on this site.

I understand. It's often tough to get the fairly exact heights of past players in many sports. I was always amused by one poster who kept shrinking Laver to the point I thought he was going to fit in with the Munkins in the Wizard of Oz. LOL.

There was one famous basketball player who was clearly over 7 feet tall but he didn't want to be known as a 7 footer so he was listed at 6'11" which was amusing.

 

[Limpinhitter]

I understand. It's often tough to get the fairly exact heights of past players in many sports. I was always amused by one poster who kept shrinking Laver to the point I thought he was going to fit in with the Munkins in the Wizard of Oz. LOL.

There was one famous basketball player who was clearly over 7 feet tall but he didn't want to be known as a 7 footer so he was listed at 6'11" which was amusing.

To me, Rosewall's racquet always looked too big for him. I can't think of who the basketball player would be. Tim Duncan is still playing. Robert Parrish?

 

[krosero]

Tennis Base has some previously unknown results for Rosewall and Gonzalez in '61. Again, TB's records are very similar to Andrew's, with some slight differences. TB is missing Rosewall's win over Pancho in Padova, documented by Andrew, but they have five previously unknown meetings:


August 8
Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Gonzalez d. Rosewall 6-4 6-4

August 9
Arcachon
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-4 6-2

August 12
La Baule
Gonzalez d. Rosewall 6-4 7-5

August 13
Dieppe
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-3 6-2

August 14
Le Touquet
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-3 6-0

TB lists Rosewall as the winner of this particular European tour (meaning the whole tour, not just the Rosewall-Gonzalez matches), but I don't know of any official final tally so it's hard to know conclusively whether everything has been documented. A couple of other new results for Rosewall at TB:

August 26
Poland tour
Katowice
Rosewall d. Haillet 6-3 4-6 6-4

(Incidentally Andrew had another win for Rosewall at an unknown location in Poland, over MacKay, in August; TB gives the date as Aug. 24 and the city as Sopot).

September 4
Belgrade
Haillet d. Rosewall 6-3 6-4

And TB has Gonzalez participating in the Dutch Pro in early August; McCauley lists the event but did not list Gonzalez as participating. Per TB, he lost in the quarters, to Segura, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

Tennis Base seems to be based in Spain and they seem to have excellent results of matches in Europe on the old pro tour.

 

[BobbyOne]

Tennis Base has some previously unknown results for Rosewall and Gonzalez in '61. Again, TB's records are very similar to Andrew's, with some slight differences. TB is missing Rosewall's win over Pancho in Padova, documented by Andrew, but they have five previously unknown meetings:


August 8
Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Gonzalez d. Rosewall 6-4 6-4

August 8
Arcachon
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-4 6-2

August 10
La Baule
Gonzalez d. Rosewall 6-4 7-5

August 11
Dieppe
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-1 3-6 6-4

August 14
Le Touquet
Rosewall d. Gonzalez 6-3 6-0

TB lists Rosewall as the winner of this particular European tour (meaning the whole tour, not just the Rosewall-Gonzalez matches), but I don't know of any official final tally so it's hard to know conclusively whether everything has been documented. A couple of other new results for Rosewall at TB:

August 26
Poland tour
Katowice
Rosewall d. Haillet 6-3 4-6 6-4

(Incidentally Andrew had another win for Rosewall at an unknown location in Poland, over MacKay, in August; TB gives the date as Aug. 24 and the city as Sopot).

September 4
Belgrade
Haillet d. Rosewall 6-3 6-4

And TB has Gonzalez participating in the Dutch Pro in early August; McCauley lists the event but did not list Gonzalez as participating. Per TB, he lost in the quarters, to Segura, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

Tennis Base seems to be based in Spain and they seem to have excellent results of matches in Europe on the old pro tour.

krosero, Great finding, and Tennis Base seems to be a fantastic source for further European results, especially for the years 1964 to 1967 where some smaller tours are missing.

Do they have also doubles results? For instance the 1964 Cannes and Hanover doubles finals would be interesting...

I believe the final of the 1961 Dutch Pro at Noordwijk was played on August 6th.

EDIT: It seems now that the Rosewall vs. Gonzalez hth was 5:4 for 1961. Thus Rosewall lead Gonzalez twice (1959 clearly, 1961 slightly) in the latter's prime.

 

[krosero]

krosero, Great finding, and Tennis Base seems to be a fantastic source for further European results, especially for the years 1964 to 1967 where some smaller tours are missing.

Do they have also doubles results? For instance the 1964 Cannes and Hanover doubles finals would be interesting...

I believe the final of the 1961 Dutch Pro at Noordwijk was played on August 6th.

EDIT: It seems now that the Rosewall vs. Gonzalez hth was 5:4 for 1961. Thus Rosewall lead Gonzalez twice (1959 clearly, 1961 slightly) in the latter's prime.

Bobby I didn't see any results there for doubles, unless I overlooked a link somewhere.

If you can tell me the specific tours that are missing (here or by email), I'll have a look.

 

[BobbyOne]

Bobby I didn't see any results there for doubles, unless I overlooked a link somewhere.

If you can tell me the specific tours that are missing (here or by email), I'll have a look.

Thanks, krosero.

Joe McCauley mentioned some smaller European tours but did not find the results (with a few exceptions).

Interesting missing tours are: 1963, July 16 to 20, GB; 1964 French tour end-July/August; 1965 GB tour September; September 28,29 Marseille; 1967 Italian tour August (4 cities), probably mid-August; end-September/October, Spain tour (4 men).

Maybe you will find at least a part of them. I wonder where Tennis Base has got from results never found by other persons.

 

[krosero]

I've become a contributer at Tennis Base. They've added the 1936 Asia pro tour to their database:

https://thetennisbase.com/?enlace=tournament&accion=draw&torneoSearchEnc=ASIA PRO TOUR&year=1936

I'll be sending them more of my data as well.

 

[krosero]

Thanks, krosero.

Joe McCauley mentioned some smaller European tours but did not find the results (with a few exceptions).

Interesting missing tours are: 1963, July 16 to 20, GB; 1964 French tour end-July/August; 1965 GB tour September; September 28,29 Marseille; 1967 Italian tour August (4 cities), probably mid-August; end-September/October, Spain tour (4 men).

Maybe you will find at least a part of them. I wonder where Tennis Base has got from results never found by other persons.

Well Bobby, I was not able to find any of these missing matches at Tennis Base. I also ran some basic searches online (nothing complex) and could not find them; I'm sure they occurred but European tour matches, particularly in France, Spain, and Italy, can be very hard to find in online archives. Perhaps someday that will change, as newspaper archives from all over the world continue to be put online.

Researchers living in Europe may find it easier.

I did find these few matches, at Tennis Base, not listed in my copy of Andrew's career file for Laver (all in Spain, in '63):


July __ in San Sebastian (sometime before July 10)
Ayala d. Hoad 8-6, 10-8
Laver d. Gimeno 6-4, 6-1

July __ in Terrassa (between July 10-15)
Laver d. Gimeno 3-6, 6-2, 6-4
Hoad d. Ayala 6-2, 6-4

July __ in Palma de Mallorca (between July 10-15)
Ayala d. Laver 2-6, 6-4, 7-5
Gimeno d. Hoad 14-12, 6-3

TB didn't list the exact dates but I've given estimates, since TB's list is chronological and I do have the exact dates (given by Andrew) for some of the matches on their list.

 

[BobbyOne]

Well Bobby, I was not able to find any of these missing matches at Tennis Base. I also ran some basic searches online (nothing complex) and could not find them; I'm sure they occurred but European tour matches, particularly in France, Spain, and Italy, can be very hard to find in online archives. Perhaps someday that will change, as newspaper archives from all over the world continue to be put online.

Researchers living in Europe may find it easier.

I did find these few matches, at Tennis Base, not listed in my copy of Andrew's career file for Laver (all in Spain, in '63):


July __ in San Sebastian (sometime before July 10)
Ayala d. Hoad 8-6, 10-8
Laver d. Gimeno 6-4, 6-1

July __ in Terrassa (between July 10-15)
Laver d. Gimeno 3-6, 6-2, 6-4
Hoad d. Ayala 6-2, 6-4

July __ in Palma de Mallorca (between July 10-15)
Ayala d. Laver 2-6, 6-4, 7-5
Gimeno d. Hoad 14-12, 6-3

TB didn't list the exact dates but I've given estimates, since TB's list is chronological and I do have the exact dates (given by Andrew) for some of the matches on their list.

krosero, A great Thank You for your research. It's perhaps a bit surprising that Tennis Base does not have the missing tours (or at least a part of them).

Thanks for these six results. Surprising win Ayala's over Laver who was the best claycourter that year.

 

[kandamrgam]

These are some stats I have posted in another thread. Looks like a better fit here:

Most titles won - 92, Jaroslav Drobny
Highest winning % - 98.5% (67-1), Reginald Doherty
Most match wins - 659, Guillermo Vilas
Longest winning streak - 116, Anthony Wilding (which he held from 1910-1914 during which he won 36 tournaments) and Bill Tilden.

Nadal wont be touching any of these. And surprised to learn Bill Tilden was an excellent clay court player!

 

[kandamrgam]

From tennisbase's link https://thetennisbase.com//?enlace=playern&player_input_enc=WILDING,+TONY&sub=2#aSubmenu I could see 313 clay court wins for Wilding. But I am sure I have read he has over 750 wins. I cant remember where but I kind of remember somewhere. Which one could be more correct?

 

[hoodjem]

You know, I hate to throw water on this flame, and this may sound trivial to some, but, I noticed that this site has Laver listed at 1.73 meters tall and Rosewall at 1.75 meters tall. Whatever might be said about these two players, two things that cannot be correctly said are that Ken Rosewall was 5'9", or, that he was taller than Laver. Did they lift this from the ATP site notorious for its errors? As immaterial as this may be concerning the infinitely fascinating issues of tennis greatness and players' relative place in tennis history, in my view, this kind of error puts a taint of doubt on all of the information found on this site.

True.

Whatever Laver's true height (I place it at 5' 9 1/2"), he was never shorter than Muscles.

 

[Limpinhitter]

True.

Whatever Laver's true height (I place it at 5' 9 1/2"), he was never shorter than Muscles.

I'm glad someone noticed my post. Thx, Hood. BTW, many years ago, I stood right next to Laver, I don't think he's quite 5' 9.5". I'd say more like 5' 8.5". But, he was all muscle. Laver was the real "Muscles."

 

[hoodjem]

I recently saw on the webside
www.thetennisbase.com
a summary on alltime clay legends. The webside was mentioned by vegito, and has quite comprehensive stats and data on alltime Tennis. Although i hadn't the time to doublecheck all stats from my own sources, it seems very well studied, and gives stats and rankings on surfaces and overall rankings. I think they have an alltime ranking based on an own formula with Laver leading Rosewall, Federer, Tilden, Lendl, Djokovic, Gonzalez, Nadal, Connors, Sampras.
Now they gave the percentages of clay legends, and have to me surprising results. We know Nadal, who has 91,38% and Borg, who ranks at 85,89% on clay, but in the lead are people from the first half of the 20th century, who may surprise many including me (look at the exact stats there under the blog Legends on clay):
1 Reggie Doherty 98,38%, lost only 1 match on clay
2 Wilding 96.01 % from an astounding 326 played/313 won
3 Kumagae
4 Laurie Doherty
5 Parker 91.89 from an even more astounding 391/367
6. Nadal
8 Mayes
9 Lacoste
10 Riggs

I must say, i never read of Mayes from Canada. What impresses me from the Stone Age (pre ww1), is Wildings tally, who won a ton on European clay, while the Dohertys played more sporadic n the Riviera circuit. From the post ww 2 players i like especially Frankie Parker, who was a real force on clay wth an abolute sensational clay record. I knew, that he won 2 RGs and had a very long career, playing DC in 1937 and even playing Ashe at USO in 1968. Maybe some Posters know better those pre ww1 players, to get more context for those stats. But it seems to be a really good datebase here.

Rather impressive that Nadal is only at no. 7.

 

[hoodjem]

I'm glad someone noticed my post. Thx, Hood. BTW, many years ago, I stood right next to Laver, I don't think he's quite 5' 9.5". I'd say more like 5' 8.5". But, he was all muscle. Laver was the real "Muscles."

Dang! Lucky you.

Basking in the aura.

What year? Was this back in his playing years?

 

[Limpinhitter]

Dang! Lucky you.

Basking in the aura.

What year? Was this back in his playing years?

It was after a team tennis match against Borg. Probably about 76'.

 

[hoodjem]

It was after a team tennis match against Borg. Probably about 76'.

Still in fighting form.

Again, lucky you.

 

[pc1]

I'm glad someone noticed my post. Thx, Hood. BTW, many years ago, I stood right next to Laver, I don't think he's quite 5' 9.5". I'd say more like 5' 8.5". But, he was all muscle. Laver was the real "Muscles."

Dang! Lucky you.

Basking in the aura.

What year? Was this back in his playing years?

It was after a team tennis match against Borg. Probably about 76'.

Still in fighting form.

Again, lucky you.

Okay at least now we have established Laver is about 5'8.5" to 5'9" tall when he was younger. I was always amused how some used to make Laver shorter and shorter so their favorite would look better.

Laver eventually did not have the mammoth left arm and wrist after he retired. The arm return to some semblance of normal size. Laver thought it was because he used the modern racquets instead of the old wood racquets. I have a hunch age and lack of training had a lot to do with it also.

People were always in awe of the size of that left arm and wrist. Laver was the strongest man in tennis for playing purposes considering that Lew Hoad was basically semi retired when Laver was at his best.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/sports/tennis/31anderson.html

 

[Vegito]

Guillermo Vilas writes articles for that website.

 

[kandamrgam]

These are some stats I have posted in another thread. Looks like a better fit here:

Most titles won - 92, Jaroslav Drobny
Highest winning % - 98.5% (67-1), Reginald Doherty
Most match wins - 659, Guillermo Vilas
Longest winning streak - 116, Anthony Wilding (which he held from 1910-1914 during which he won 36 tournaments) and Bill Tilden.

Nadal wont be touching any of these. And surprised to learn Bill Tilden was an excellent clay court player!

I am so sad to learn Wilding couldn't play Tilden during his time. There was only 10 year difference between them but sadly Wilding died in 1915. There was a small 1913-1914 two year window where Tilden could have met Wilding somewhere but Tilden wasn't at his best then anyway.