Guillermo Vilas Video Showcase

Guillermo Vilas (born August 17, 1952 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a former Argentine professional tennis player.

Vilas turned professional in 1969, finishing in the top ten from 1974 to 1982. He was a clay-court specialist, but also played well in hardcourt, grass and carpet.

A southpaw, Vilas became the first South American male player to win a grand slam event, winning four times: the French Open and U.S. Open titles 1977 (both played on claycourt), and the 1978 and 1979 Australian Open titles (both played on grass). He was also three-times French Open runner-up (1975, 1978 and 1982) and once Australian Open runner-up (January, 1977) Raised in the sea resort of Mar del Plata, Vilas played his first tour event in 1969 and got his first big break in the 1974 Masters tournament (played in grass), where he defeated Ilie N?stase in the final match.

A left-handed baseliner Vilas' best season on tour was 1977 when he not only won two of the four majors but also 16 of the 31 ATP tournaments he entered (absolute record in the Open Era), a record which at the time had only ever been equaled by the legendary Rod Laver.

His playing record for that season was an amazing 145 wins against 14 losses (ATP win-loss record was 128-14). The season climax was winning the last US Open played at Forest Hills against Jimmy Connors 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-0 in a match where Vilas surprised his American rival by attacking the net. He has a 46 match winning streak on any surfaces (still unrivalled) and consecutively won 7 titles -Kitzbühel (Clay), Washington (Clay), Louisville (Hard), South Orange (Hard), Columbus (Hard), U.S. Open (Clay) and Paris (Clay) after Wimbledon in 1977.

He also had 53 winning streak in claycourt (including both ATP and unofficial tournaments, record broken by Rafael Nadal in 2006). Both his winning streaks were terminated on October 1977 by Ilie N?stase in the final of Aix-en-Provence tournament. In that 5-setter final, he dropped the first 2 sets by 1-6, 5-7 and then retired from the competition because of his dissatifaction with Ilie N?stase's using an illegal racquet. He complained that the opponent had used the spaghetti string racquet which was banned by ATP shortly after.

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Photo author: saborido from flickr.com