Tennis/Catalogs/World No. 1 male players

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This is a supplement to the articles about Tennis and Famous tennis players, and to the articles about the individual players.

Under construction: This will be a chronological listing of both the male tennis player who, at the end of a full year of play, has generally been considered to be the best overall player for the entire year, and of the runner-up for that year. Before the Open era of tennis arrived in 1968, rankings for amateur players were normally only compiled for a full year of play and the professional players had no rankings at all except for seedings in individual tournaments. Even for the amateurs, there was no single official overall ranking that encompassed the entire world; rankings were done by the national tennis association of each individual country. It was only with the introduction of computerized rankings in the Open era that rankings became common on a more frequent basis than at the end of the year. There were no official rankings of players worldwide until approximately 1972, so that all rankings in this list, no matter how authoritative, are both unofficial and entirely subjective. For each year, however, at least one, and sometimes more, authoritative source for that ranking is given:

(A = Amateur, P = Professional)

The No. 1 player in the world for the full calendar year:

Year Name World No. 2 Source of Ranking
1913 Tony Wilding (NZ) A. Norman Brookes (AUS) A. and Maurice McLoughlin (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateur, were Wilding, Brookes and McLoughlin tied for 2nd, Jim Cecil Parke, R. Norris Williams, Percy Dixon, Otto Froitzheim, Stanley Doust, André Gobert, and Max Décugis.
1914 Maurice McLoughlin (USA) A. Norman Brookes (AUS) A. and Tony Wilding (NZ) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateur, were McLoughlin, Brookes and Wilding tied for 2nd, Froitzheim, Williams, Parke, Arthur Lowe, F. Gordon Lowe, Heinrich Kleinschroth, and Décugis.
1915-1918 World War I, no world rankings
1919 Gerald Patterson(AUS) A. and Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London The Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Patterson and Johnston tied for 1st, Gobert, Bill Tilden, Brookes, Algernon Kingscote, Williams, Percival Davson, Willis Davis, and William Laurentz.
1920 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London The Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Johnston, Kingscote, Parke, Gobert, Brookes, Williams, Laurentz, Zenzo Shimidzu, and Patterson.
1921 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London The Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Johnston, Vinnie Richards, Shimidzu, Patterson, James Anderson, Brian Norton, Manual Alonso, Williams, and Gobert.
1922 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London The Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Johnston, Patterson, Richards, Anderson, Henri Cochet, Pat O'Hara Wood, Williams, Kingscote, Gobert.
1925 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateur, were Tilden, Johnston, Richards, Lacoste, Williams, Borotra, Patterson, Alonso, Norton, and Takeichi Harada.

References

I will add references as I go along

Sources

  • The Official Encyclopedia of Tennis of the United States Tennis Association, edited by Bill Shannon, Harper & Row, New York, 1981, has annual rankings for the top 10 amateur players as compiled every year from 1914 through 1980, pages 496-501. These rankings were made annually by various tennis experts at a London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph: A. Wallis Myers (1913-1938), Sir F. Gordon Lowe (1939), Pierre Gillow (1946 and 1951), John Dliff (1947-1950), and Lance Tingay (1952-1980). Beginning with the late 1920s, first many, then most, of the best players in the world were professionals; once turning professional, as Bill Tilden did in 1931, they were not longer included in these annual lists.
  • History of the Pro Tennis Wars, by Ray Bowers, is a Web site associated with the Tennis Server site. In twelve chapters, Bowers gives a very detailed account of the first sixteen years of professional tennis, from its modest beginnings in 1926 on through 1942. In his summing-up for each year, he gives his rankings for the top 8 to 10 best players of the year, combining both amateurs and professionals. In almost all cases, as far as amateurs are concerned, his rankings coincide with those of the Daily Telegraph.
  • Total Tennis: The Ultimate Tennis Encyclopedia (2003), by Bud Collins. This massive work has year-by-year chapters in which Collins gives a brief summation of the Pro Tour results, often with personal comments about the players. It also has somewhat more complete rankings from the early years of the Daily Telegraph. The combined amateur-professional rankings for 1968 through 1972 are those of Collins himself. Beginning with 1973, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) began issuing computer-generated weekly rankings. Total Tennis shows the top 10 players in these rankings for the last week of every calendar year through 2002, and the top 2 player are included here.

See also

External links

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