Guillermo Vilas

Guillermo Vilas (born 17 August 1952) is an Argentine former professional tennis player. Vilas was the No. 1 of the Grand Prix seasons in 1974, 1975 and 1977. He won four Grand Slam titles, the year-end championship, and 62 ATP titles overall. World Tennis, Agence France-Presse and Livre d'or du tennis 1977 (Christian Collin-Bernard Ficot), among other rankings and publications, rated him as world No. 1 in 1977. In the ATP computer rankings, he peaked at No. 2 in April 1975, a position he held for a total of 83 weeks, although some have argued that Vilas should have been ranked No. 1 for at least 10 weeks, particularly in 1977 when he won 2 grand slams. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991, two years after his first retirement. Vilas is known for his prowess on clay courts. He won more than 650 matches on clay, which is an all-time record. His peak was the 1977 season during which he 16 titles including two majors (both on clay) and had a 53 winning streak on clay which was the longest in the Open Era at his time. In 2016, The Daily Telegraph ranked him as the 3rd best male clay-court player of all time, behind Rafael Nadal and Björn Borg. In 2018, Steve Tignor for Tennis Magazine ranked him as the 16th greatest tennis player of the Open Era.