Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era
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Before the beginning of the Open era in 1968 only amateurs were allowed to compete in mainstream tennis tournaments, including the four Grand Slams. However some top players turned professional, and played in separate professional events, mostly on tours in head-to-head competition.
[edit] The three major professional tournaments
In addition to head-to-head events there were several annual professional tournaments that were called championship tournaments. The most prestigious was the Wembley Professional Championship at Wembley in England, played between 1934 and 1990, that was unofficially considered the world's championship through 1967. The oldest was the United States Professional Championship, played between 1927 and 1999. Between 1955 and 1962, it was played indoors in Cleveland and was called the World Professional Championships. The third major tournament was the French Professional Championship, played between 1930 and 1968. The British and American championships continued into the Open era but devolved to the status of minor tournaments.
These three tournaments until 1967 are referred as the professional Grand Slam tournaments by tennis historians as Robert Geist in "DER GRÖSSTE MEISTER Die denkwürdige Karriere des australischen Tennisspielers Kenneth Robert Rosewall" or Raymond Lee in his "Greatest Player of All time: A Statistical Analysis" article [1].
The status of the Wembley Championships of 1936 and 1938 is unclear. Two of the three major sources for the professional championships list the results as shown below. Ray Bowers' History of professional tennis says that neither of these tournaments ever occurred and offers substantiating evidence for his assertion.
[edit] Wembley Championship
This tournament was called the "London Indoor Professional Championships" from 1951 through 1967. In 1968, it was called the "Kramer Tournament of Champions." From 1969 through 1971, the tournament was called the "British Covered Court Championships." Finally, it was called the "Benson & Hedges Tournament" beginning in 1976.
[edit] United States Pro Championship
The U.S. Pro Championship, also U.S. Pro, was an annual tournament. It has also been known as MFS Pro Championships. The first was organized by player Vinny Richards when promoter C.C. Pyle withdrew interest in the project. It was played on the Notlek courts located at 119th Street and Riverside Drive, Manhattan. The following four editions were played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens. The next five were played at various clubs in Chicago and New York.
From 1937 to 1941 a tournament was held at the Greenbrier Golf and Tennis Club, White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia and called the U.S. Open, as it was open to both pros and amateurs. Because of their participation the latter were later officially barred from future U.S.L.T.A. amateur competition. The 1937 edition of the U.S. Open is also viewed as the U.S. Pro. The U.S. Pro was then played in Chicago or Los Angeles until the 1940s, the 1946 through '49 events played at the West Side in Forest Hills.
From 1950 to 1964 promoter Jack March organized an annual tournament called the World Pro Championship that was held at different sites in Cleveland: in 1950 and from 1952 to 1962 the tournament served as the U.S. Pro. Between 1954 and 1962 it was played indoors at the Cleveland Arena. After playing the 1963 edition at the West Side the tournament had a permanent home at the Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where it was played from 1964 through 1995 and from 1997 to 1999.
The following are the pre-Open tennis results for the U.S. Pro Championship:
[edit] French Pro Championship
French Pro Championship were always played at Paris, on outdoor clay at Roland Garros except from 1963 to 1967 where it was held at Stade Pierre de Coubertin on indoor wood. It is not sure that there were French Pro editions between 1930 and 1933 but Joe McCauley has found tournaments results. In History of the Pro Tennis Wars, by Ray Bowers (http://www.tennisserver.com/lines/lines-archive.html), a Web site where in eleven chapters, Bowers gives a very detailed account of the first sixteen years of the professional tennis tours, from a modest beginning in 1926 with Suzanne Lenglen and Vincent Richards as the main attractions, on through 1941, there is no mention of French Pro tournaments between 1930 and 1933. According to Bowers in 1933 the only professional competition played at Roland Garros was a USA-France meeting, September 22-24, in the Davis Cup format won by the USA 4-1 where Cochet overcame Bruce Barnes, Tilden defeated Plaa and Cochet, Barnes beat Plaa, and Americans then closed out the doubles. Many sources probably wrongly considered the Tilden-Cochet match as a final of a supposed French Pro.
In 1953, from Saturday November 21 to Sunday November 22, a 4-man (Sedgman winner, Gonzales runner-up, Segura 3rd and Budge 4th) professional tournament was held in Paris on indoor red cement at the Palais des Sports but there is no mention anywhere that this tournament was a French Pro : in particular in the January 1954 edition of Tennis de France, the french magazine, run by Philippe Chatrier (future president of the ILTF) who made the report of this tournament by interviewing Frank Sedgman, winner of the tournament. Joe McCauley included this tournament in his list of French Pro tournaments but he precised in his book "History of Professional Tennis" : "May not have been considered at the time as an official French Pro". In January 1950 in the same site Pancho Segura defeated Jack Kramer.
See List of French Men's Singles champions and finalists
[edit] External links
- History of the Pro Tennis Wars
- Chapter I: Suzanne Lenglen and the First Pro Tour
- Chapter II, Part 1: The eminence of Karel Kozeluh and Vincent Richards 1927-1928
- Chapter II, Part 2: Deja vu 1929-1930
- Chapter III: Tilden's Year of Triumph in 1931
- Chapter IV: Tilden and Nusslein, 1932-1933
- Chapter V: The Early Ascendancy of Vines, 1934
- Chapter VI: Vines's Second Year: 1935
- Chapter VII: Awaiting Perry, 1936
- Chapter VIII: Perry and Vines, 1937
- Chapter IX: Readying for Budge, 1938
- Chapter X: Budge's Great Pro Year, 1939
- Chapter XI: America, 1940-1941fr:Tournois majeurs professionnels de tennis de l'ère pré-open
it:Campionati professionali di tennis sv:Professionella tennismästerskap
