Hi Ivan
sorry for getting back late. Just think we completely disagree on Perry.
Happy New Year, Drob! I haven't thought they are people not congratulating for Christmas and New Year.
Several times in your post you are using the plural form "us" in your expression. Well, it's your choice but I prefer somebody's personal opinion.
Re Perry I described my arguments year by year. You may disagree but I haven't seen none of your arguments. Briefly, the fact that he refused to turn pro for some years speaks clearly that he felt uncomfortable to play pro players. Of course they were some financial issues but finally he got not much more than he wanted.
For sure, we can speak with stats. Whatever you want.
Re. the general skepticism of your more surprising rankings, you really need to lay out your standards or criteria for designating big tournaments or Big Titles. Such standards might change slightly by eras. But this is easy to show us. On a smaller scale I have determined the tournaments between 1968 and 1995 which are Masters 1000-Approximates, in my estimation. I list the criteria (factors) and explain how each tournament selected meets the criteria, or in a few cases a good reason for making an exception (such as weak field but a million dollar prize).
General skepticism? I wouldn't say so. Out of 144 years of rankings elegos disagreed about couple of them and you disagreed about couple of them.
Please have in mind that the classification of Open era tournaments is much much much easier task than the pre OE jungle. When somebody analyses the pre OE it's crucial for the objective analysis that it's used a strong, unified and structured methodology. Until now I haven't found a person who is using such. Partly it is TB but I found many key holes there.
Well, how about giving us the complete picture for just some of the more controversial years:
1886
1909
1923
1926
1930
1933-37
Controversial years compared to whom ??? Till now no one expert, historian, researcher or whatever has presented solid arguments for their choice. The wide used "arguments" "this journalist said so" or "I think player A is better than player B" are too unserious.
1886 - already discussed; yep, my choice looks strange for the "mainstream" but at least is logical unlike the mainstream.
The mainstream says Renshaw or Sears because they won Wim and US. I say no because they won in ONLY 1 match. No reasonable historians can put No 1 player with 1 won match for the year !!! That's too too weird based on whatever standards of sports.
1909 - the same case as 1886
1923 - I don't know where the problem is. In terms of biggest titles Johnston won 2 and is finalist in 1. Tilden won 1. The American mainstream ignored European tournaments and concentrated on the winner of US. Simple but ... biased choice. Not acceptable by any sports standards.
1926 - I don't see a problem. Borotra and Cochet were the best. Lacoste also but played little. Tilden played only on US soil. US won Davis but Tilden played only in the challenge round where he had 1 win and 1 loss. 1 win in the best tournaments is not enough for a top position.
1930 - Maybe you think it should be Cochet. It could be the case. But ... Cochet played only 4 tournaments for the year if I remember correctly. He won RG and played 3 matches for Davis. He beat twice Tilden but h2h if not in series of matches is not decisive for me.
Tilden had 140 matches for the year, Cochet - 15-16. With such numbers of matches you can't prove you are the best. Moreover Cochet didn't perform well at Wim while Tilden was a finalist at RG.
1933-37 - already discussed;
And other years where you well out of the mainstream.
That's an excellent theme. Thanks for raising it. Let me start with the thesis that 99.9% of the mainstream does use blindly the copy/paste information. From any internet sources. They don't analyse the information, they don't structure it, they don't assess it. They don't even become thoughtful if this info is reliable, prompt, accurate. Everything is accepted for granted.
To be honest I was a part of the mainstream some 7-8 years ago when accidentally came across some obvious mistakes. I counted them to 100 and stopped. That was my red lamp that I should find the "truth". All the years since then have been spent in finding the correct sources, ignoring the wrong ones and doubting every publication and every opinion till proving for correctness.
All my experience not only in sport proved me that these 99.9% tend to move more leisurely downstream than to understand processes and circumstances. My target was never to write something in order to be liked. I prefer to be rather in that 0.01% (quality side) than in the mainstream (quantity side).
I am still on my phone here and your years and players don’t line up so I can’t follow them.
Phone is never for me a proper solution for complex contents.
And amateurs only 65 - 76% as good as pros from ca. 1931-67 - you have to explain that. This is only apparent roughly 1957-60. For the other years you need to show why this is so.
As you are a fan of the mainstream I will tell you the 2 wide-spread opinions which are ... fully contradictory.
1st version - "Amateurs were a full scrap. What mattered was only pro."
2nd version - "Slams matter most (no matter amateur or open)". That's why Emerson is one of the greatest with 12.
In the midst of the mainstream I am an astronaut.
The general argument for the value of the amateur tennis can be seen after analysing the whole history. All amateur players with only 4 exceptions were weaker than the pro when entering the pro. From these 4 exceptions we should exclude Tilden and Kramer who didn't have a big opposition in the beginning.
The other 2 exceptions are Vines and Budge. All the other rookie pros struggled. They got better and better only after a few years in the pro.
And no. The period is absolutely not 1957-60. From 1930 to 1972 the pros dominated in the tour. Maybe only some years after WW2 could be discussible due to objective reasons - sport was almost destroyed.
My approach is to find a balanced fair solution. In terms of points it doesn't really matter if the percentage is 60, 70 or something similar. I don't believe it's 50%. At the same time the amateurs were not so close to the pros having in mind their results as pros.
So, my approach is again not from the mainstream. It tries to assess all achievements.