Grand Prix tennis circuit

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The Grand Prix tennis circuit was one of the two main professional tennis circuits from 1970 to 1989. The rival tour was World Championship Tennis (WCT), which existed from 1967 to 1990. They both merged in 1978 and were separated from 1982 to 1984, before remerging in 1985.

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[edit] Background

The popular tennis professional players were under contract with a professional promoter during the pre-Open Era. Popular players like Suzanne Lenglen and Vincent Richards were engaged by Charles C. Pyle to tour in North America. The professionals under contract were controlled by their promoters and could not play the tournaments they want while the amateur players followed their national (and international) federation. For example, In 1939, Norman Brookes, president of the Australian Federation decided not to send Australian players at Wimbledon for the preparation for the Davis Cup, great Aussie players as John Bromwich or Adrian Quist went to the USA to capture the Cup but didn't play Wimbledon. Consequently during the first century of tennis the players had absolutely no power.

In 1967, some professionals were independent including Lewis Hoad, Luis Ayala, and Owen Davidson but, most of the best players were under contract.

So the professionals under contract were controlled by their promoters and could not play the tournaments they want. In 1968, the WCT players weren't allowed to participate by their own boss in French Open. In 1970, the NTL players didn't play the Australian Open because their organization didn't receive a guarantee. In 1970, neither WCT nor NTL players played in the French Open.

[edit] Formation of Grand Prix

In Open era, promoters of NTL and WCT began to control the whole game. For example, if Wimbledon didn't want to pay their price, the promoters held their players out of the event. To prevent such a control, Jack Kramer, the best player in the world in the 1940s and 1950s and a promoter himself, conceived the Grand Prix in 1969. He described it as "a series of tournaments with a money bonus pool that would be split up on the basis of a cumulative point system. This would encourage the best players to compete regularly in the series, so that they could share in the bonus at the end and qualify for a special championship tournament that would climax the year".[1].

In 1970, only a few contract players showed up for the French Open. The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), predecessor of International Tennis Federation (ITF), alarmed by the control of the promoters, approved Kramer's proposition of Grand Prix. The first Grand Prix tournament was the British Hard Court Championships played on clay at Bournemouth on April 28. Twenty seven tournaments including the three Grand Slams, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open were played that year with Stockholm tournament ended on November 1. The independent professionals along with a few contract players entered the Grand Prix circuit. The contract players could play the Grand Prix events if they were allowed and had time left apart from their own circuit.

[edit] ILTF-WCT rivalry and creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)

The first WCT tournaments were held in February 1968 and the first NTL tournaments in March 1968. In spring 1970, the WCT absorbed the NTL.

In 1971, the WCT run its circuit with 20 tournaments and the year-ending WCT Finals held in November. At the end of 1970, a panel of journalists ranked the best players in the world. This ranking served to the WCT organization to sent invitations to the 32 best men to play the 1971 WCT circuit: among these 32 players, those who declined the invitation and stayed independent professionals (as opposed to the WCT contract pros) were Ilie Năstase, Stan Smith, Jan Kodeš, Željko Franulović and Clark Graebner. So in 1971, the majority of the best players in the world played mainly the WCT circuit and not the Grand Prix circuit, which principally consisted of the independent professionals.

The Australian Open was a WCT competition whereas Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Forest Hills were Grand Prix events. The conflict between the ILTF running the Grand Prix and the WCT was so strong that Rosewall, Gimeno, Laver, Emerson and other WCT players didn't enter the U.S. Open. There was a third professional circuit that year with the U.S Indoor Circuit run by Bill Riordan, future manager of Jimmy Connors.

In 1972, the struggle between ILTF and WCT ended with ILTF's ban of the contract pro players from January to July and consequently the WCT contract pros were strictly forbidden to play the Grand Prix circuit including Roland Garros and Wimbledon. At the U.S. Open all the players entered the tournament at least and created their own syndicate, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

In 1973, there were four rival pro circuits: the WCT circuit, the Grand Prix circuit, the U.S. indoor circuit with Connors and Ilie Nastase and the European Spring Circuit with Nastase as their star.

[edit] Integration

Until 1977, the WCT and Grand Prix circuits were separate and in 1978 the Grand Prix circuit integrated the WCT circuit with its eight tournaments. In 1982, the WCT circuit came out independent again and created a more complex WCT ranking, similar to the ATP ranking. Because of WCT's failure in the 1980s, the Grand Prix circuit then became the main professional circuit. The governance of the Grand Prix was led by the Men's International Professional Tennis Council (MIPTC), later renamed to Men's Tennis Council (MTC).

[edit] Formation of the ATP Tour

In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, replaced the MTC as the governing body of men's professional tennis, and the ATP Tour was born. With the beginning of the ATP Tour in 1990, the nine most prestigious events on the Tour became known as Super Nine events. The label 'Grand Prix' was done away with by the ATP Tour at the beginning of 1990. Twelve of the more prestigious Grand Prix events became International Series Gold tournaments, while the remaining ones (approximately 50) became known as International Series events. The format has been continued from the 1998 season to the present. The Super Nine events was later recalled the Masters Series tournaments and offered the best fields, the best facilities and the most prize money after the Grand Slam tournaments. In 2000, the Grand Slam tournaments and the Masters Series tournaments became the only mandatory events in tennis. Players were automatically entered and the Masters Series and the Slams became the baseline for player rankings.

[edit] Grand Prix positions (Top 10) : 1970-1989

1970 1. Richey 2. Ashe 3. Rosewall 4. Laver 5. Smith 6. Franulovic 7. Newcombe 8. Kodes 9. Roche 10. Carmichael (11. Goven 12. Nastase 13. Crealy 14. Ruffels 15. Graebner 16. Ralston 17. Fillol 18. Tiriac 19. Drysdale 20. Emerson)

1971 1. Smith 2. Nastase 3. Franulovic 4. Kodes 5. Richey 6. Newcombe 7. Barthes 8. Rosewall 9. Graebner 10. Gorman (11. Froehling 12. Okker 13. Taylor 14. Riessen 15. Ashe 16. Fillol 17. Laver 18. Goven 19. Gimeno 20. Lutz)

1972 1. Nastase 2. Smith 3. Orantes 4. Kodes 5. Gimeno 6. Hewitt 7. Connors 8. Gorman 9. Pattison 10. Proisy

1973 1. Nastase 2. Newcombe 3. Okker 4. Connors 5. Orantes 6. Kodes 7. Smith 8. Gorman 9. Borg 10. Ashe

1974 1. Vilas 2. Connors 3. Orantes 4. Borg 5. Ramirez 6. Nastase 7. Parun 8. Solomon 9. Ashe 10. Smith

1975 1. Vilas 2. Orantes 3. Borg 4. Ashe 5. Nastase 6. Connors 7. Ramirez 8. Panatta 9. Solomon 10. Dibbs

1976 1. Ramirez 2. Orantes 3. Connors 4. Dibbs 5. Solomon 6. Vilas 7. Tanner 8. Fibak 9. Gottfried 10. Borg

1977 1. Vilas 2. Gottfried 3. Borg 4. Orantes 5. Dibbs 6. Tanner 7. Ramirez 8. Connors 9. Gerulaitis 10. Solomon

1978 1. Connors 2. Borg 3. Dibbs 4. Ramirez 5. Solomon 6. McEnroe 7. Vilas 8. Gottfried 9. Barazzutti 10. Ashe

1979 1. McEnroe 2. Borg 3. Connors 4. Vilas 5. Gerulaitis 6. Tanner 7. Higueras 8. Solomon 9. Dibbs 10. Pecci

1980 1. McEnroe 2. Lendl 3. Connors 4. Borg 5. G Mayer 6. Solomon 7. Vilas 8. Clerc 9. Teltscher 10. Teacher

1981 1. Lendl 2. McEnroe 3. Connors 4. Clerc 5. Vilas 6. Borg 7. Tanner 8. Teltscher 9. Gerulaitis 10. Noah

1982 1. Connors 2. Vilas 3. Lendl 4. McEnroe 5. Wilander 6. Gerulaitis 7. Higueras 8. Kriek 9. Gomez 10. Denton

1983 1. Wilander 2. Lendl 3. McEnroe 4. Connors 5. Noah 6. Arias 7. Higueras 8. Gomez 9. Clerc 10. Teltscher

1984 1. McEnroe 2. Connors 3. Lendl 4. Wilander 5. Gomez 6. Nystrom 7. Sundstrom 8. Teltscher 9. Jarryd 10. Smid

1985 1. Lendl 2. McEnroe 3. Wilander 4. Edberg 5. Becker 6. Connors 7. Noah 8. Jarryd 9. Kriek 10. Nystrom

1986 1. Lendl 2. Becker 3. Edberg 4. Nystrom 5. Noah 6. Wilander 7. Leconte 8. Gomez 9. Connors 10. Mecir

1987 1. Lendl 2. Edberg 3. Wilander 4. Mecir 5. Becker 6. Connors 7. Cash 8. Gilbert 9. Mayotte 10. Gomez

1988 1. Wilander 2. Becker 3. Edberg 4. Agassi 5. Lendl 6. Leconte 7. Connors 8. Mayotte 9. Hlasek 10. K Carlsson

1989 (last year) 1. Lendl 2. Becker 3. Edberg 4. Gilbert 5. McEnroe 6. Chang 7. Agassi 8. Krickstein 9. Mancini 10. Berger

[edit] See also

World Championship Tennis

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ THE GAME My 40 Years in Tennis, by Jack Kramer with Frank Deford, pages 275-276