Sunday 12 December 2010

Advent calendar day 12 #14 Guillermo Vilas

Day 12 of the countdown to the best player of all time

image found here
14th Best Player of all time

Guillermo Vilas

Grand Slams won - 4
Grand Slam Finals lost - 4
Overall amount of singles titles won - 62
Overall Match Winning percentage - 76.47% (923-284)
Top rank - 2

I think I may have put Vilas a bit to high up but he was a good player. He has won half of his 8 Grand Slams finals. This includes three of the four Grand Slams, missing Wimbledon form his collection, making the Quarter Finals twice. His break through was in 1974, when he won the ATP World Tour Finals, beating Ilie Nastase in the Finals. He won two consecutive Australian Open in 1978 and 1979. These were his last Grand Slams. In 1977 he had his best year, winning 2 Grand Slams and making a final. This may not sound very good, but he also won a record 16 tournaments of the 32 he played as well as a great 130-15 winning record, this is the largest amount of matches ever won in a season. Not including his Run to the Semi-Finals at the ATP World Tour Finals, he won an incredible 72 of his last 73 matches. He also won a record seven consecutive titles as well as a record 46 match winning streak on all surfaces. Both runs were ended at the same time by Ilie Nastase and after the end of the run, he would win another 28 matches in a row. Even after this great season, he could only settle for number 2, unable to overtake Jimmy Connors. He held the record for the most wins on clay in a row of 53, which Nadal famously defeated, with 81 consecutive wins. He even helped Argentina to their first Davis Cup Final, where they lost. In 1989 he retired from professional tennis. 

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