Guillermo Vilas

Infobox Tennis player


playername= Guillermo Vilas
country= ARG
residence= Buenos Aires, Argentina
datebirth= birth date and age|mf=yes|1952|8|17
placebirth= Buenos Aires, Argentina
height= 180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
weight= 75 kg (165 lb)
turnedpro= 1969
retired= 1992
plays= Left; One-handed backhand
grip=
careerprizemoney= $ 4,923,882
singlesrecord= 923–284
singlestitles= 68 including 62 listed by the ATP
highestsinglesranking= No. 2 (April 30, 1975)
AustralianOpenresult= W (1978, 1979)
FrenchOpenresult= W (1977)
Wimbledonresult= QF (1975, 1976)
USOpenresult= W (1977)
Othertournaments = Yes
MastersCupresult = W (1974)
doublesrecord= 216–149
doublestitles= 15
highestdoublesranking= No. 175 (January 3, 1983)

Guillermo Vilas (born August 17, 1952 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a former Argentine professional tennis player.

Career

Raised in the sea resort of Mar del Plata, Vilas was a southpaw and played his first tour event in 1969.  He was in the year-ending top ten from 1974 through 1982. He was a clay-court specialist, but also played well on hard, grass, and carpet surfaces.

Vilas was the first South American male player to win a Grand Slam singles title. He won four of them: the 1977 French Open and the 1977 U.S. Open (both played on clay) and the 1978 and 1979 Australian Open (both played on grass). He was also the runner-up at the French Open three times (1975, 1978, and 1982) and at the Australian Open once (January 1977).

Vilas got his first big break in the 1974 Masters tournament (played in grass), where he defeated Ilie Năstase in the final.

Best Season

A left-handed baseliner, Vilas' best season on tour was 1977 [http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/players/playerprofiles/playeractivity.asp?query=Singles&year=1977&player=V028&selTournament=0&prevtrnnum=0  ATP Player Profile] when he not only won two of the four majors but also 16 of the 31 ATP tournaments he entered, a record which at the time had only ever been equalled by the legendary Rod Laver. His playing record for that season was an amazing 145 wins against 14 losses (ATP win-loss record was 130-14). The season climax was winning the last U.S. Open played at Forest Hills against Jimmy Connors 2–6, 6–3, 7–6(4), 6–0 in a match where Vilas surprised his American rival by attacking the net. The crowd, amazingly, support Willy that day.

Records: Winning streak, most titles in a single year

He has a 46 match winning streak on any surfaces (still unrivalled) and consecutively won seven titles -Kitzbühel (Clay), Washington (Clay), Louisville (Hard), South Orange (Hard), Columbus (Hard), U.S. Open (Clay) and Paris (Clay) after Wimbledon in 1977. He also had 53 winning streak in claycourt (including both ATP and unofficial tournaments, record broken by Rafael Nadal in 2006). Both his winning streaks were terminated on October 1977 by Ilie Năstase in the final of Aix-en-Provence tournament. In that five-set final, he dropped the first two sets by 1–6, 5–7 and then retired from the competition in protest of Ilie Năstase using "the spaghetti string" racquet. The spaghetti string [http://www.itftennis.com/technical/equipment/strings/stringing/ "String Area Properties" - ITF] racquet was banned by ATP shortly after.

Even though he won 16 ATP singles titles, including the French Open and the U.S. Open and was the runner-up at the January edition of the Australian Open in 1977, he was never World No. 1 in the 1977 ATP rankings. He was instead year-end World No. 2 in the ATP rankings, below Jimmy Connors (who won the Masters and 6 other titles and was the runner-up at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1977). However, the magazine World Tennis and Michel Sutter gave Vilas the World No. 1 ranking.

Retirement

Vilas retired from the ATP tour in 1989, but still played ATP Challenger Series until 1992. [http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/players/playerprofiles/playeractivity.asp?prevtrnnum=0&year=0&query=Singles&selTournament=0&player=V028&x=11&y=12 ATP Player Profile]

Distinctions

*His highest tour ranking was World No. 2. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991.
*At the end of his career, he had 62 ATP singles titles (5th most in Open Era) with 41 singles runners-up, and 15 doubles titles with other 10 doubles finals.
*He took Argentina to its first-ever Davis Cup final in 1981 (lost to United States), together with José Luis Clerc, who was also a top-ten player. The Argentine press made many mentions of the tensions between the two, which even reverberated to the 2004 French Open awards ceremony, in which Vilas presented Gastón Gaudio with his trophy, over Clerc's objections.
*Vilas' success on the court led to a surge in popularity of tennis in Argentina and throughout Latin America. Guillermo Cañas and Guillermo Coria were named after him.

1977

* In 1977, Guillermo Vilas played 31 ATP Tour singles tournaments, entered 22 finals (including 3 Grand Slam Tournaments) and won 16 titles - the Record of number of singles titles won by one player in a year in the Open Era (including 2 Grand Slam titles).
* He also had a 46 singles winning streak (50 Rye included) in any surfaces in ATP Tour (within July-September 1977, including 2 Davis Cup singles win over Australia which is not shown in ATP Tour Profile.) [ [http://www.daviscup.com/teams/player.asp?player=10001449 Davis Cup - Players ] ] - the longest overall winning streak in Open Era.
* The ATP record of 53 matches winning streak on clay (including unofficial tournaments), finished within 1977, was broken by Rafael Nadal in May 2006.
* He is still the only player to win ATP Tour singles titles in four different continents in the same year - Europe, America, Africa and Asia. (1977)

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (4)

valign=top align=left

Doubles titles (15)

* 1974 (4) - Buenos Aires, Montreal/Toronto, Tehran, Hilversum
* 1975 (3) - Barcelona, Hilversum, Louisville
* 1977 (4) - Baltimore, Buenos Aires, Nice, Tehran
* 1978 (2) - Aix-En-Provence, Munich
* 1979 (2) - North Conway, San Jose

ATP singles runner-ups (42)

* 1972 (2) - Buenos Aires, Cincinnati
* 1974 (1) - Washington
* 1975 (3) - Boston, French Open, San Francisco
* 1976 (3) - Dallas WCT, Rome, São Paulo WCT
* 1977 (6) - Aix en Provence, Australian Open (Jan.), Baltimore, Nice, Palm Springs, Johannesburg "(not held)"
* 1978 (1) - French Open
* 1979 (5) - Indianapolis, Richmond WCT, Rome, Stuttgart Indoor, Sydney Indoor
* 1980 (4) - Barcelona, Hamburg, Madrid, Monte Carlo
* 1981 (7) - Monte Carlo ("not finish, final abandoned by rain"), Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Kitzbuhel, North Conway, Pepsi Grand Slam, Washington
* 1982 (5) - Baltimore WCT, Barcelona, Gstaad, Johannesburg, French Open
* 1983 (4) - Barcelona, Detroit WCT, Hilton Head WCT, Rotterdam
* 1986 (1) - Forest Hills

Grand Slam / Masters singles performance

¹ Australian Open played in January. (i.e. Australian Open was held twice in 1977.)
² Australian Open played in Season End from December to the next-year January.
³ Masters (now Tennis Masters Cup) played in the next-year January.

=1977 Record= 

* Singles Titles (16)
** Springfield, U.S.A. - Carpet
** Buenos Aires, Argentina - Clay
** Virginia Beach, U.S.A. - Hard
** Roland Garros (French Open) - Clay
** Kitzbuhel, Austria - Clay
** Washington, U.S.A. - Clay
** Louisville, U.S.A. - Clay
** South Orange, U.S.A. - Hard
** Columbus, U.S.A. - Hard
** U. S. Open - Clay
** Paris, France - Clay
** Tehran, Iran - Clay
** Bogotá, Colombia - Clay
** Santiago, Chile - Clay
** Buenos Aires-2, Argentina - Clay
** Johannesburg WCT, South Africa - Hard

* Singles Runners-up (6)
** Australian Open - Grass
** Baltimore, U.S.A. - Carpet
** Palm Springs, U.S.A. - Hard
** Johannesburg, South Africa - Hard "(not held)"
** Nice, France - Clay
** Aix en Provence, France - Clay

* Total Win-Loss : 128-14  (Most win recognised by ATP within the same calendar year, not including Davis Cup)

References

External links

* [http://www.tennisfame.com/famer.aspx?pgID=867&hof_id=120 International Tennis Hall of Fame profile]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/players/playerprofiles/?playernumber=V028 Official ATP profile]
* [http://www.canaltrans.com/deportes/personalidades/vilas.html Biography] (Spanish)