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)

Year Name World No. 2 Source of Ranking and Additional Information
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. both ranked equally A. Wallis Myers of the London 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 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 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 Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Johnston, Patterson, Richards, Anderson, Henri Cochet, Pat O'Hara Wood, Williams, Kingscote, and Gobert.
1923 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Little Bill Johnston (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Johnston, Anderson, Williams, Frank Hunter, Richards, Norton, Alonso, Jean Washer, and Cochet.
1924 Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Vinnie Richards (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateurs, were Tilden, Richards, Anderson, Johnston, René Lacoste, Jean Borotra, Howard Kinsey, Patterson, Cochet, and Alonso.
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.
1926 René Lacoste (FR) A. Jean Borotra (FR) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateur, were Lacoste, Borotra, Cochet, Johnston, Tilden, Richards, Harada, Alonso, Kinsey, Jacques Brugnon; the promoter Charles C. Pyle signed Richards, Harvey Snodgrass, Kinsey, and Paul Féret for the first professional tour, which toured the United States and Canada in the fall of 1926; the headliner, however, was the French female player Suzanne Lenglen against Mary Kendall Browne and there are only scattered records of the men's matches.
1927 René Lacoste (FR) A. Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. A. Wallis Myers of the London Daily Telegraph; his top 10 players, all amateur, were Lacoste, Tilden, Cochet, Borotra, Alonso, Frank Hunter, George Lott, John Hennessey, Brugnon, and Jan Koželuh; Ray Bowers ranks Karel Koželuh, the older brother of Jan Koželuh, and Vinnie Richards as being tied for #1 among the few professional players but does not make a joint amateur-professional ranking.
1928 Henri Cochet (FR) A. René Lacoste (FR) A. Bowers merges his professional rankings with Myers's amateur list and rates the top 8 players in the world as being Cochet, Lacoste, Tilden, Karel Koželuh, Richards, Hunter, Borotra, and George Lott, with Koželuh and Richards being the only professionals.
1929 Henri Cochet (FR) A. René Lacoste (FR) A. Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Cochet, Lacoste, Borotra, Tilden, Karel Koželuh, Hunter, Lott, and Richards, with Koželuh and Richards being the only professionals.
1930 Henri Cochet (FR) A. Big Bill Tilden (USA) A. Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Cochet, Tilden, Richards, Karel Koželuh, Borotra, Doeg, Frank Shields, and Wilmer Allison, with Koželuh and Richards being the only professionals.
1931 Big Bill Tilden (USA) P. Henri Cochet (FR) A. Tilden, aged 38, turned professional and, in a head-to-head tour, def. Koželuh either 63 matches to 13 (Joe McCauley) or, according to Tilden himself, 50 to 17 in the North American part of the tour (see Bowers); Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Tilden, Cochet, Bunny Austin, Ellsworth Vines, Fred Perry, Karel Koželuh, Richards, and Shields, with Tilden, Koželuh, and Richards being the only professionals; this was, however, the first year that a professional was ranked either No. 1 or No. 2.
1932 Ellsworth Vines (USA) A. Big Bill Tilden (USA) P. In the pros Tilden beat Vinnie Richards 12-1 and, according to Bud Collins, was 60-40 against the young German Hans Nüsslein; Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Vines, Tilden, Cochet, Karel Koželuh, Borotra, Martin Plaa, Allison, and Nüsslein, with Tilden, Koželuh, Plaa, and Nüsslein being professionals.
1933 Jack Crawford (AUS) A. Fred Perry (GB) A. The professional picture was murky: Cochet, aged 31, turned pro; neither Tilden, aged 40, Koželuh, 38, nor the younger Nüsslein, Cochet, Richards, or Plaa was able to establish any clear superiority; data from more than half of the Tilden-Nüsslein tour in America (January—early May) indicate that Tilden won 2/3 of their meetings; the amateur Ellsworth Vines ranked the top pros as being Tilden, Cochet, Koželuh, Richards; the professional Albert Burke, however, ranked them as being Nüsslein, Tilden, Koželuh, and Plaa; Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Crawford, Perry, Nüsslein, Tilden, Karel Koželuh, Jiro Satoh, Austin, and Vines, with Nüsslein, Tilden, and Koželuh being the only professionals.
1934 Fred Perry (GB) A. Ellsworth Vines (USA) P. Vines, aged 22, turned pro; in their initial head-to-head tour, Vines def. Tilden 11 matches to 9; in subsequent tours Tilden beat Plaa 10-0 and Cochet 8-2 while Vines beat Cochet 10-0 and Plaa 8-2; Bowers says that by the end of May, having played somewhat more than 50 matches, Vines led Tilden by 19 wins; Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Perry, Vines, Crawford, Gottfried von Cramm, Nüsslein, Tilden, Austin, and Allison, with Vines, Nüsslein, and Tilden being the only professionals.
1935 Fred Perry (GB) A. and Ellsworth Vines (USA) P. both ranked equally Vines beat Les Stoefen 25-1 in a head-to-head tour while Tilden was beating George Lott 20-4 with one tie; after Stoefen fell ill, Vines beat Nüsslein in another tour about three-quarters of the time (and also Tilden in their few meetings); Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Perry and Vines tied for #1, then Crawford, von Cramm, Tilden, Nüsslein, Allison, and Austin, with Vines, Tilden, and Nüsslein, being the only professionals.
1936 Fred Perry (GB) A. and Ellsworth Vines (USA) P. both ranked equally In the American tour Vines easily defeated Les Stoefen; exact results are unknown but on March 29th Vines led 33-5; in an Asian tour Vines led Tilden 8-1 at the end of the Japanese part of the tour; Bowers ranks the top 8, both amateur and pro, as being Perry, Vines, von Cramm, Nüsslein, Don Budge, Tilden, Adrian Quist, and Cochet, with Vines, Nüsslein, Tilden, and Cochet being the only professionals; Bowers also writes that three other experts, L'Auto(a French sports magazine), Don Budge, and Bill Tilden, ranked Vines ahead Perry for the year.

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.
  • The History of Professional Tennis (2003) by Joe McCauley. This book, published in England, is a year-by-year account of the professional tours and tournaments between 1926 and 1968, then has 80 additional pages of year-by-year results of as many tournaments, tours, and head-to-head matches as the author, a long-time writer for World Tennis, could find.

See also

External links

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