The weird story of Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score on Netflix
Guillermo Vilas dominated in the 1970s and is still a record with 16 tournament victories in a single season. But the Argentine was never officially number one in the tennis world, which also has to do with an opaque ranking system of the ATP. The documentation "Settling the Score" deals with the topic.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Nov 03, 2020, 08:15 am
The ATP has had a world ranking list since August 23, 1973. The first number one in history was Ilie Nastase before John Newcombe overtook him in June 1974. The dominance of Jimmy Connors began just eight weeks later, which was only broken by Björn Borg after more than three years.
One player who had beaten Connors several times and even had a better season than the American was the Argentinian Vilas. However, in the 1970s the ATP did not update the ranking weekly, but rather on random dates.
The journalist Eduardo Puppo racked his brains over this for several years, and together with the Romanian mathematician Marian Ciulpan followed and recalculated the rankings in the early years. Result: Vilas should have been number one for seven weeks.
The documentary "Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score" deals with the dramatic story of the man who sparked a huge tennis boom in South America. Vilas is portrayed in an impressive and empathic way and the Sisyphus task of reconstructing the rankings is staged.
Old recordings of Vilas show him as a casual player who touches on the hippie and who now lives with his family in Monaco. Clear recommendation for the documentation - a must for every tennis fan!