Borg beat gottfried in the final in memphis. He beat the lowly ranked tom gulikson in the sf. He gets points for beating gottfried nothing for Gullikson. In rankings beating a quality like Gottfried (top 50) is worth something. borg's wins over vilas in '77 are always highlighted.He beat john lloyd in 2 finals and they are worth nothing. this sysyem is trying to highligh top wins and so it should. The more restrictive it is the higher empasis for top 3 wins.
About surface. No ranking system has ever distinguished between surfaces. Today's atp system does not. Neither did any of the 70's systems whether by atp, grand prix or WCt. In 1977 clay was king, both the usopen and french wre on clay and all the events leading up to them wre on clay. It was the most important surface.
The atp rankings are a joke in the 70s. Neither WCT or the masters counted anything. Money decided the reltive points and high prize money events like Las vegas was awarded a huge amount of points. In 1977 on the grand prix the slams were awarded 250 points; vegas would be 175 and the field was just ok( 2 top tenners ramirez and connors).; ludicrous. At the unplayed johanaesbrg final both Borg and vilas were awarded 105 points after beating mediocre players because the event put up 150,000. Nice where they both reached the final playing players of a similar qulaity, Borg picked 50 for winning and vilas 35 because the event only put up 50,000. Vilas's achievement was the same in both events as far as i'm concerned. Money does not mean quality.
Now with the super 9 you are guarranteed quality. you can award extra points. In 1997 only one event philadeplhia justified the description. That's why I treated all the rest the same, execept for 4 man event (only 2 matches), and gave them all 50 points and then gave bonuse based on who you actually beat, restricting it to the top 17 with a heavy bias towards the top 3.
Moose malloy sems to have infated some of the events. Barcelona was only 100,000, wembly 125,000, Memphis 175,000. all regular WCT events like monte carlo 100,000.
John Necombe played every Aussie open between 1969 and 1976 (he was injured at the start of 77). No other player matched that. Whatever he said in his book , he regarded it as a prestige event. Tanner's win is his most impotrant and remembered performance along with is runner-up in 1979 at wimbledon. The world of tennis yearbook in 1977 gave as much coverage to the Ausie open as the other 3 slams; a lot more than memphis. Remember I only awarded 75 ppints compared to 150 for Wimbledon, but its still a prestige event as was the WCT finals. Borg had 5 to choose from; he only turned up at 2; he needed to play both the WCT and the french to be competitive given vilas' 17 wins, including 2 slams.
jeffrey
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Very good points. Particularly about the surfaces. Clearly clay was a much more important surface in the 70s than today. Hard courts did not began to acquire their current status until the US Open switched to it, and later the AO. Today the balance is very heavily tilted toward hard, of course, to the point where clay is almost seen as a less worthy surface, and the green clay events have almost completely disappeared in the US and are disappearing elsewhere also. This, along with the disappearance of grass from the AO, is one of the most regretful developments of tennis since the 80s. Much more than the change in racquet technology I think. The human body did not evolve to prance and bounce on flat rocks, but rather to glide and dance gracefully on the soft earth and the cushy green grass. Cement is an abomination and an insult to the art of tennis.