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Guillermo Vilas

Country (sports)	Argentina
Residence	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Height	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
Turned pro	1969
Retired	1992
Plays	Left; One-handed backhand
Prize money	$ 4,923,882
Singles
Career record	923–284
Career titles	68 including 62 listed by the ATP
Highest ranking	No. 2 (April 30, 1975)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	W (1978, 1979)
French Open	W (1977)
Wimbledon	QF (1975, 1976)
US Open	W (1977)
Other tournaments
Tour Finals	W (1974)
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

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 1977when 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 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.

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.) - 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)

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 (68)

Singles titles listed by the ATP Website (62)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	December 2, 1973	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Björn Borg	3–6, 6–7, 6–4, 6–6 ret.
2.	July 24, 1974	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Manuel Orantes	6–1, 6–2
3.	July 28, 1974	Hilversum, Netherlands	Clay	Barry Phillips-Moore	6–4, 6–2, 1–6, 6–3
4.	August 11, 1974	Louisville, U.S.	Clay	Jaime Fillol	6–4, 7–5
5.	August 18, 1974	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Manuel Orantes	6–4, 6–2, 6–3
6.	November 3, 1974	Tehran, Iran	Clay	Raúl Ramírez	6–0, 6–3, 6–1
7.	December 1, 1974	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Manuel Orantes	6–3, 0–6, 7–5, 6–2
8.	December 15, 1974	Masters, Melbourne, Australia	Grass	Ilie Năstase	7–6, 6–2, 3–6, 6–4
9.	May 11, 1975	Munich, West Germany	Clay	Karl Meiler	2–6, 6–0, 6–2, 6–3
10.	July 20, 1975	Hilversum, Netherlands	Clay	Željko Franulović	6–4, 6–7, 6–2, 6–3
11.	July 27, 1975	Washington D.C., 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	José 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	Kitzbühel, Austria	Clay	Jan Kodeš	5–7, 6–2, 4–6, 6–3, 6–2
25.	July 24, 1977	Washington D.C., 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	José 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, West Germany	Clay	Wojtek Fibak	6–2, 6–4, 6–2
37.	May 28, 1978	Munich, West 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 D.C., U.S.	Clay	Víctor 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	Kitzbühel, 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	Víctor 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 Jr.	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	Kitzbühel, 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	Kitzbühel, Austria	Clay	Henri Leconte	7–6, 4–6, 6–4

Other singles titles not listed by the ATP Website (6)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
01.	1972	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Héctor Romani	6–2 6–4 6–2
02.	March 10, 1974	River Plate, Argentina	Clay	Julián 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
05.	October 28-30, 1977	Caracas, The Super Tennis 77 Tournament, Venezuela	Clay	Ilie Nastase	6–2 6–2
06.	July 25-26, 1979	Aix-en-Provence, France	Hard	Ilie Nastase	6–4 6–4

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

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

1. http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/players/playerprofiles/playeractivity.asp?query=Singles&year=1977&player=V028&selTournament=0&prevtrnnum=0  ATP Player Profile
2. http://www.itftennis.com/technical/equipment/strings/stringing/ "String Area Properties" - ITF
3. 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
4. Davis Cup - Players

External links

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

Awards
Preceded byVijay Amritraj	ATP Most Improved Player   1974	Succeeded byVitas Gerulaitis
Preceded by Horacio Iglesias	Olimpia de Oro 1974 – 1975	Succeeded by Juan Carlos Harriot
Preceded by Juan Carlos Harriot	Olimpia de Oro 1977	Succeeded by Daniel Martinazzo

• Argentine tennis players
• Australian Open champions
• French Open champions
• US Open champions
• Tennis Hall of Fame members
• People from Mar del Plata
• 1952 births
• Living people