Guillermo Vilas

 

Guillermo Vilas

Country	Argentina
Residence	Mar del Plata, Argentina
Date of birth	August 17 1952 (1952--) (age 55)
Place of birth	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Height	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	75 kg (165 lb)
Turned Pro	1969
Retired	1992
Plays	Left; One-handed backhand
Career Prize Money	$ 4,923,882
Singles
Career record:	923 - 284
Career titles:	62
Highest ranking:	No. 2 (April 30, 1975)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	W (1978, 1979)
French Open	W (1977)
Wimbledon	QF (1975, 1976)
U.S. Open	W (1977)
Doubles
Career record:	216-149
Career titles:	15
Highest ranking:	No. 175 (January 3, 1983)

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

Career

Vilas turned professional in 1969, finishing in the top ten from 1974 to 1982. He was a clay-court specialist, but also played well in hardcourt, grass and carpet.

A southpaw, Vilas became the first South American male player to win a grand slam event, winning four times: the French Open and U.S. Open titles 1977 (both played on claycourt), and the 1978 and 1979 Australian Open titles (both played on grass). He was also three-times French Open runner-up (1975, 1978 and 1982) and once Australian Open runner-up (January, 1977)

Raised in the sea resort of Mar del Plata, Vilas played his first tour event in 1969 and got his first big break in the 1974 Masters tournament (played in grass), where he defeated Ilie Năstase in the final match.

A left-handed baseliner Vilas' best season on tour was 1977 when he not only won two of the four majors but also 16 of the 31 ATP tournaments he entered (absolute record in the Open Era), a record which at the time had only ever been equaled by the legendary Rod Laver. His playing record for that season was an amazing 145 wins against 14 losses (ATP win-loss record was 128-14). The season climax was winning the last US 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.

He has a 46 match winning streak on any surfaces (still unrivalled) and consecutively won 7 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 5-setter final, he dropped the first 2 sets by 1-6, 5-7 and then retired from the competition because of his dissatifaction with Ilie Năstase's using an illegal racquet. He complained that the opponent had used the spaghetti string^[1] racquet which was banned by ATP shortly after.

Even though he won 16 ATP singles titles including French Open (named after Roland Garros) and U.S. Open and the runner-up of Australian Open of January in 1977, he never rose up to number 1. He was year-end number 2 in the 1977 ATP ranking, only below Jimmy Connors (who won 7 titles including Masters and both runners-up of Wimbledon and US Open in 1977). However, the magazine World Tennis, generally the referring one of that sport at that time, gave Vilas the number one ranking and Champion of the World title.

Vilas retired from the ATP tour in 1989, but still played ATP Challenger Series until 1992. [1] 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 also took Argentina to its first-ever Davis Cup final in 1981 (lost to U.S.A.), 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 is single-handedly responsible for the popularity of tennis in Argentina or even Latin America. Guillermo Cañas and Guillermo Coria were named after him.

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (4)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1977	French Open	Brian Gottfried	6-0, 6-3, 6-0
1977	U.S. Open	Jimmy Connors	2-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-0
1978	Australian Open	John Marks	6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
1979	Australian Open (2)	John Sadri	7-6, 6-3, 6-2

Runner-ups (4)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1975	French Open	Björn Borg	6-2, 6-3, 6-4
1977	Australian Open (Jan.)	Roscoe Tanner	6-3, 6-3, 6-3
1978	French Open (2)	Björn Borg	6-2, 6-1, 6-3
1982	French Open (3)	Mats Wilander	1-6, 7-6, 6-0, 6-4

Singles titles (66)

Singles titles listed by the ATP Website (62)

ATP Singles

Grand Slam (4)

Masters (1)

ATP Grand Prix or WCT (57)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
01.	December 2, 1973	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Björn Borg	3-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-6 ret.
02.	July 24, 1974	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Manuel Orantes	6-1, 6-2
03.	July 28, 1974	Hilversum, Netherlands	Clay	Barry Phillips-Moore	6-4, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3
04.	August 11, 1974	Louisville, U.S.	Clay	Jaime Fillol	6-4, 7-5
05.	August 18, 1974	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Manuel Orantes	6-4, 6-2, 6-3
06.	November 3, 1974	Tehran, Iran	Clay	Raúl Ramírez	6-0, 6-3, 6-1
07.	December 1, 1974	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Manuel Orantes	6-3, 0-6, 7-5, 6-2
08.	December 15, 1974	Masters, Melbourne, Australia	Grass	Ilie Năstase	7-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4
09.	May 11, 1975	Munich, Federal Republic of Germany	Clay	Karl Meiler	2-6, 6-0, 6-2, 6-3
10.	July 20, 1975	Hilversum, Netherlands	Clay	Zeljko Franulovic	6-4, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3
11.	July 27, 1975	Washington, U.S.	Clay	Harold Solomon	6-1, 6-3
12.	August 10, 1975	Louisville, U.S.	Clay	Ilie Năstase	6-4, 6-3
13.	November 16, 1975	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Adriano Panatta	6-1, 6-4, 6-4
14.	February 22, 1976	St. Louis WCT, U.S.	Carpet	Vijay Amritraj	4-6, 6-0, 6-4
15.	February 29, 1976	Fort Worth WCT, U.S.	Hard	Phil Dent	6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-1
16.	April 18, 1976	Monte Carlo WCT, Monaco	Clay	Wojtek Fibak	6-1, 6-1, 6-4
17.	August 22, 1976	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Wojtek Fibak	6-4, 7-6, 6-2
18.	November 21, 1976	São Paulo, Brazil	Carpet	Jose Higueras	6-3, 6-0
19.	November 28, 1976	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Jaime Fillol	6-2, 6-2, 6-3
20.	February 13, 1977	Springfield, U.S.	Carpet	Stan Smith	3-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2
21.	April 17, 1977	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Wojtek Fibak	6-4, 6-3, 6-0
22.	April 24, 1977	Virginia Beach, U.S.	Hard	Ilie Năstase	6-2, 4-6, 6-2
23.	June 5, 1977	French Open	Clay	Brian Gottfried	6-0, 6-3, 6-0
24.	July 17, 1977	Kitzbuhel, Austria	Clay	Jan Kodes	5-7, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2
25.	July 24, 1977	Washington, U.S.	Clay	Brian Gottfried	6-4, 7-5
26.	July 31, 1977	Louisville, U.S.	Clay	Eddie Dibbs	1-6, 6-0, 6-1
27.	August 7, 1977	South Orange, U.S.	Clay	Roscoe Tanner	6-4, 6-1
28.	August 14, 1977	Columbus, U.S.	Clay	Brian Gottfried	6-2, 6-1
29.	September 11, 1977	US Open	Clay	Jimmy Connors	2-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-0
30.	September 25, 1977	Paris, France	Clay	Christophe Roger-Vasselin	6-2, 6-1, 7-6
31.	October 9, 1977	Tehran, Iran	Clay	Eddie Dibbs	6-2, 6-4, 1-6, 6-1
32.	November 13, 1977	Bogotá, Colombia	Clay	Jose Higueras	6-1, 6-2, 6-3
33.	November 20, 1977	Santiago, Chile	Clay	Jaime Fillol	6-0, 2-6, 6-4
34.	November 27, 1977	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Jaime Fillol	6-2, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3
35.	December 4, 1977	Johannesburg WCT, South Africa	Hard	Buster Mottram	7-6, 6-3, 6-4
36.	May 21, 1978	Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany	Clay	Wojtek Fibak	6-2, 6-4, 6-2
37.	May 28, 1978	Munich, Federal Republic of Germany	Clay	Buster Mottram	6-1, 6-3, 6-3
38.	July 16, 1978	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	José Luis Clerc	6-3, 7-6, 6-4
39.	August 6, 1978	South Orange, U.S.	Clay	José Luis Clerc	6-1, 6-3
40.	October 1, 1978	Aix-en-Provence, France	Clay	José Luis Clerc	6-3, 6-0, 6-3
41.	October 29, 1978	Basel, Switzerland	Carpet	John McEnroe	6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4
42.	January 7, 1979	Australian Open 1978	Grass	John Marks	6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
43.	January 14, 1979	Hobart, Australia	Grass	Mark Edmondson	6-4, 6-4
44.	July 22, 1979	Washington, U.S.	Clay	Victor Pecci	7-6, 7-6
45.	November 25, 1979	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	José Luis Clerc	6-1, 6-2, 6-2
46.	January 6, 1980	Australian Open 1979	Grass	John Sadri	7-6, 6-3, 6-2
47.	May 25, 1980	Rome, Italy	Clay	Yannick Noah	6-0, 6-4, 6-4
48.	July 27, 1980	Kitzbuhel, Austria	Clay	Ivan Lendl	6-3, 6-2, 6-2
49.	September 14, 1980	Palermo, Italy	Clay	Paul McNamee	6-4, 6-0, 6-0
50.	February 8, 1981	Mar del Plata, Argentina	Clay	Victor Pecci	2-6, 6-3, 2-1 ret.
51.	March 15, 1981	Cairo, Egypt	Clay	Peter Elter	6-2, 6-3
52.	April 12, 1981	Houston, U.S.	Clay	Sammy Giammalva	6-2, 6-3
53.	February 7, 1982	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Alejandro Ganzábal	6-2, 6-4
54.	March 21, 1982	Rotterdam, Netherlands	Carpet	Jimmy Connors	0-6, 6-2, 6-4
55.	March 28, 1982	Milan, Italy	Carpet	Jimmy Connors	6-3, 6-3
56.	April 11, 1982	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Ivan Lendl	6-1, 7-6, 6-3
57.	May 2, 1982	Madrid, Spain	Clay	Ivan Lendl	6-7, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-3
58.	July 18, 1982	Boston, U.S.	Clay	Mel Purcell	6-4, 6-0
59.	July 25, 1982	Kitzbuhel, Austria	Clay	Marcos Hocevar	7-6, 6-1
60.	February 13, 1983	Richmond WCT, U.S.	Carpet	Steve Denton	6-3, 7-5, 6-4
61.	February 27, 1983	Delray Beach WCT, U.S.	Clay	Pavel Slozil	6-1, 6-4, 6-0
62.	July 27, 1983	Kitzbuhel, Austria	Clay	Henri Leconte	7-6, 4-6, 6-4

Other singles titles not listed by the ATP Website (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
01.	1972	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Hector Romani	6-2 6-4 6-2
02.	March 10, 1974	River Plate, Argentina	Clay	Julian Ganzabal	7-6 4-6 6-3 6-3
03.	April 20, 1975	River Plate, Argentina	Clay	Clark Graebner	6-2 6-1 6-4
04.	August 28, 1977	Rye, Westchester Country Club, U.S.	Clay	Ilie Nastase	6-2 6-0

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
• 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, 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

Tournament	1970	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	Career
Australian Open	-	-	-	-	-	-	F 1	W ²	W ²	SF ²	3r ²	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2
French Open	-	3r	3r	3r	F	QF	W	F	QF	QF	4r	F	QF	1r	2r	QF	2r	2r	1r	1
Wimbledon	1r	1r	-	3r	QF	QF	3r	3r	2r	-	1r	-	1r	-	-	1r	-	-	-	0
US Open	-	2r	1r	4r	SF	SF	W	4r	4r	4r	4r	SF	3r	3r	2r	1r	-	-	-	1
Masters	-	-	-	W	SF	SF	SF³	-	RR³	RR³	RR³	SF³	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1

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.

Significant Success in 1977

Vilas in 1977 (Source : ATP)

• 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 in any surfaces in ATP Tour (within July-September 1977, including 2 Davis Cup singles win over Australia which is not shown in ATP Profile.) [2] - 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 singles titles in five different continents in the same year - Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia. (1977)

• 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. - Hard
  • 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
  • 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

1. ^ "String Area Properties" - ITF

External links

• International Tennis Hall of Fame profile
• Official ATP profile
• Biography (Spanish)

Australian Open men's singles champions*

* Open Era • (1969) Rod Laver • (1970) Arthur Ashe • (1971-72) Ken Rosewall • (1973) John Newcombe • (1974) Jimmy Connors • (1975) John Newcombe • (1976) Mark Edmondson • (1977 [Jan]) Roscoe Tanner • (1977 [Dec]) Vitas Gerulaitis • (1978-79) Guillermo Vilas • (1980) Brian Teacher • (1981-82) Johan Kriek • (1983-84) Mats Wilander • (1985) Stefan Edberg • (1986) No competition • (1987) Stefan Edberg • (1988) Mats Wilander • (1989-90) Ivan Lendl • (1991) Boris Becker (1992-93) Jim Courier • (1994) Pete Sampras • (1995) Andre Agassi • (1996) Boris Becker • (1997) Pete Sampras • (1998) Petr Korda • (1999) Yevgeny Kafelnikov • (2000-01) Andre Agassi • (2002) Thomas Johansson • (2003) Andre Agassi • (2004) Roger Federer • (2005) Marat Safin • (2006-07) Roger Federer

French Open men's singles champions*

* Open Era • (1968) Ken Rosewall • (1969) Rod Laver • (1970-71) Jan Kodeš • (1972) Andrés Gimeno • (1973) Ilie Năstase • (1974-75) Björn Borg • (1976) Adriano Panatta • (1977) Guillermo Vilas • (1976) Jimmy Connors • (1977) Guillermo Vilas • (1978-81) Björn Borg • (1982) Mats Wilander • (1983) Yannick Noah • (1984) Ivan Lendl • (1985) Mats Wilander • (1986-87) Ivan Lendl • (1988) Mats Wilander • (1989) Michael Chang • (1990) Andrés Gómez • (1991-92) Jim Courier • (1993-94) Sergi Bruguera • (1995) Thomas Muster • (1996) Yevgeny Kafelnikov • (1997) Gustavo Kuerten • (1998) Carlos Moyà • (1999) Andre Agassi • (2000-01) Gustavo Kuerten • (2002) Albert Costa • (2003) Juan Carlos Ferrero • (2004) Gastón Gaudio • (2005-07) Rafael Nadal

US Open men's singles champions*

* Open Era • (1968) Arthur Ashe • (1969) Rod Laver • (1970) Ken Rosewall • (1971) Stan Smith • (1972) Ilie Năstase • (1973) John Newcombe • (1974) Jimmy Connors • (1975) Manuel Orantes • (1976) Jimmy Connors • (1977) Guillermo Vilas • (1978) Jimmy Connors • (1979–81) John McEnroe • (1982–83) Jimmy Connors • (1984) John McEnroe • (1985–87) Ivan Lendl • (1988) Mats Wilander • (1989) Boris Becker • (1990) Pete Sampras • (1991–92) Stefan Edberg • (1993) Pete Sampras • (1994) Andre Agassi • (1995–96) Pete Sampras • (1997–98) Patrick Rafter • (1999) Andre Agassi • (2000) Marat Safin • (2001) Lleyton Hewitt • (2002) Pete Sampras • (2003) Andy Roddick • (2004–07) Roger Federer

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