Before the start of the Open Era and in addition to numerous small tournaments and head-to-head tours between the leading professionals, there were a few major professional tournaments that stood out during different periods:
Some survived sporadically because of financial collapses and others temporarily stood out when other important tournaments were not held:
Bristol Cup (held on the Côte d'Azur (French Riviera) at Cannes or Menton or Beaulieu) from 1920 to 1932.[1]
There were a few team events modeled on the Davis Cup, such as the Bonnardel Cup from 1935 to 1937[16] and the Kramer Cup from 1961 to 1963.[17]
Three traditional "championship tournaments" survived into the Open Era, often having all the leading players but sometimes having very depleted fields.
The oldest of the three was the United States Professional Championship, played between 1927 and 1999. From 1954 through 1962, this tournament was played indoors in Cleveland and was billed as the "World Professional Championships".
The third major tournament was the French Professional Championship, played usually at Roland Garros from 1930 through 1968 (not held in all years). The British and American championships continued into the Open Era but soon devolved to the status of minor tournaments.
However these three tournaments were considered retrospectively by some tennis experts[18][19][20] as the three tournaments of the professional Grand Slam (until 1967). Some years as in 1948, only one of them was held, the U.S Pro in this case, and even in 1944 none was organized : this explains why professionals players sometimes have less major titles than those of the modern players but it doesn't mean that the banished players of the pre-Open Era were less great than their Open Era colleagues.
As with any statistics, those of tennis players should be put into the correct context because:
a) they are mixing performances of the amateur circuit (until 1967), the professional circuit (until 1967), and the open circuit (since 1968).
b) they don't always take into account the greatest events of a given year.
For instance, Ken Rosewall's amateur successes between 1953 and 1956 were achieved without having to compete against world-class professionals like Frank Sedgman and Pancho Gonzales. Likewise, when Rod Laver captured the amateur Grand Slam in 1962, he did not have to face opponents such as Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Pancho Segura and Andrés Gimeno, all professionals. In 1967 Laver won all the greatest pro tournaments that year, Wimbledon Pro (grass), the U.S. Pro (grass), Wembley Pro (indoor wood) and the French Pro (indoor wood). In the official statistics as published by the ITF or ATP, pro events before 1968 are not listed because only the amateur tournaments were taken into account.
Most major singles titles
The three professional tournaments (Wembley Pro, French Pro, U.S. Pro) until 1967 are sometimes referred as the 'professional Grand Slam tournaments' by tennis historians, such as Robert Geist or Raymond Lee (in his Greatest Player of All time: A Statistical Analysis article).[21] This list comprises winners of three types of titles; Amateur Era and Open Era majors (Australian, French, Wimbledon, and US championships), plus the three Amateur Era professional majors (French Pro, Wembley Pro, and US Pro).
As of the 2024 Australian Open (active players in boldface).
^Grand Slam tournaments of the Open Era are marked in bold font.
^Rosewall's wins at the Wembley Pro in 1968 and the U.S. Pro in 1971 are not included in the list of his "major" titles because those tournaments were not major events after the start of the Open Era in April 1968.
^Laver's wins at the Wembley Pro in 1969 and 1970, the U.S. Pro in 1968 and 1969, and the French Pro in 1968 are not included in the list of his "major" titles because those tournaments were not major events after the start of the Open Era.
The draws of Pro majors were significantly smaller than the traditional Grand Slam tournaments; usually they only had 16 or even fewer professional players. Though they were the top players in the world, this meant only four rounds of play instead of the modern six or seven rounds of play.
In the years before the Open Era, male professionals often played more frequently in tours than in tournaments because a head-to-head tour between two tennis stars was much more remunerative than a circuit of pro tournaments and the number of professional tournaments was small. For example, Fred Perry earned U.S. $91,000[22] in a 1937 North American tour against Ellsworth Vines but won only U.S. $450[23] for his 1938 victory at the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships. Vines probably never entered a tournament between the London Indoor Professional Championship in October 1935, which he won, and the May 1939 edition of that tournament, which he lost. In 1937, Vines played 70 matches on two tours[24] and no matches in tournaments. Even in the 1950s, some professionals continued to play numerous tour matches. During his first five months as a professional (January through May 1957), Ken Rosewall played 76 matches on a tour against Pancho Gonzales.[25]
The prevalence of head-to-head tours before 1959 and the small number of professional tournaments in many years makes it necessary to consider the tours when comparing male players from before the Open Era with male players during the Open Era. The following lists the pre-Open Era professionals who won the most world professional championship tours.
Winners World Professional Championship tours (1928–63)
After World War II, with an increasing number of prominent professional players, there were occasionally tournament series with point systems which created official rankings for the complete field of pros.
In 1946, there was a professional tournament series of 18 events in the U.S. under the organization of the P.P.A.T. (Professional Players Association of Tennis) linked by a points system won by Riggs, which he relied upon as evidence of his mastery of the entire pro field.[26] In 1959, Kramer established a series of 15 tournaments in Australia, North America, and Europe linked by a points system which provided a full field ranking of all the contract professionals, plus a substantial money prize for the top finisher, with Hoad emerging as world No. 1.[27] The 1959 tournament series was officially named the "Ampol Open Trophy", after the principal sponsor of the tournaments, the Ampol oil company, and the trophy awarded to the winner.[28] In 1960, Kramer again established a tournament series with a points system, but both Gonzales and Hoad withdrew from the field and the final results are unknown.
In 1964, under Kramer's advice, the I.P.T.P.A. (International Professional Tennis Players Association) established a series of 17 tournaments in U.S. and Europe with a points system, and a world No. 1 and world champion was named as a result, Rosewall.[29] This system continued in subsequent years, with Laver attaining the No. 1 ranking position for the 1965, 1966, and 1967 pro tournament series.[30] The final points tables of these later tournament series were not published.
In 1968–69, the two professional tennis tours, the NTL and the WCT, each had a tournament series ranking list which contributed four players from each tour to a combined final 8-man tournament at the Madison Square Garden. Roche won the 1968 event,[31] and Laver won the 1969 event.[32]
In 1970, the ILTF authorized Kramer to arrange a year-end championship in which the pros with the highest tournament series points competed for the title of Grand Prix champion. This event was held in various locations and finally remained at Madison Square Garden from 1977 to 1989. In 1990, the ATP took over running the event and started awarding ranking points for the 8 qualifiers based on their results in the tournament. Currently, the championship is known as the "ATP Finals".[33]
^Michel Lejard (June 30, 1952). "Ségura, exécutant Budge s'affirme un étonnant champion". L'Equipe (in French). p. 9. Segura vainqueur de ses trois matches a fait mieux que confirmer l'extraordinaire impression de la première journeé [...] Segura (Equat.) b. Budge (USA), 6-3, 6-2. [...] Segura b. Gonzalès, 6-2, 6-1.
