The man from Mar del Plata, who turns 70 this Wednesday, conquered 62 titles during his extraordinary career, four of them from Grand Slam and a Mastersand set several records, three not yet surpassed and obtained in the same year, 1977, when it was the best of all although unusually the ATP he did not recognize him as number one in the world.
The record for undefeated matches that ended with controversy and could be duplicated
For example, won 46 consecutive matches on all surfacesin a streak that began in Kitzbühel and stretched out with their titles chained in Washington, louisville, South Orange, columbusthe US Open Y Parisplus two wins in between for the Davis cup in view of Australia in Buenos Aires.
the streak of Vilas came to an end in the final ATP french de Aix-en-Provence who lost with the Romanian Ilie Nastase by 6-1, 7-5 and abandonment, with the detail that his rival used a double-strung racket to defeat him.
That racket that the Romanian used was banned after that tournament and generated great anger in Vilas because after that final he won a large number of consecutive games again: a total of 26product of titles in Tehran, Bogota, Santiago, Buenos Aires Y Johannesburgso that record could have been much higher. His record could have reached 72 or 73 games undefeated, crazy.
Among current tennis players there were two who came close to reaching the mark of Vilas: Roger Federer He reached 41 consecutive victories until he lost to another Argentine, William Canasin Indian Wells 2007while Novak Djokovic reached 43 celebrations in a row until he fell to Federer in the semifinals of Roland Garros from 2011.
Nevertheless, Rafael Nadal broke a record Vilasthe one of the 53 consecutive wins on clay obtained in 1977. The Spanish super champion broke that mark between 2005 and 2007, when he reached 81 wins in a row on clay until he lost to Federer the end of hamburg.
Record for total wins in a calendar year
another record of Vilas it was the 137 victories in the same year counting all surfaces.
This year Vilas won 16 titles including Roland Garros and the US Opensomething that no one could ever repeat and that compared to one of the cracks of these times the closest was Federer with his 92 wins in the 2006 season.
Number of titles in a season
The remaining unbeaten achievement of “Willy” is that of win 16 titles in one season.
In that unrepeatable 1977 Vilas raised the trophy in Springfield, Buenos Aires (1), Virginia Beach, Roland Garros, Kitzbühel, Washington, Louisville, South Orange, Columbus, US Open, Paris, Tehran, Bogotá, Santiago, Buenos Aires (2) Y Johannesburg.
In another comparison with modern cracks, the Swiss Federer racked up 12 titles in 2006, while Nadal it reached 11 in 2005.
Source: Ambito
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