The ATP will not revisit its ranking records to determine whether Guillermo Vilas reached the No. 1 ranking, the tour has told the New York Times.
An Argentine group has submitted extensive records and materials to the ATP, asking for Vilas to be recognized as the No. 1 for seven weeks between 1975 and 1976. The 1,100 pages assembled and given to the ATP in 2014 indicate that the Argentine Grand Slam champion should have been No. 1 for five weeks in 1975 and two weeks in 1976. The ATP rankings were not published weekly during those years, partly because of technological constraints.
But ATP CEO Chris Kermode said the organization would not go back and look at whether Vilas should have been recognized as No. 1. "We just can’t adopt this version of rankings as official history; otherwise you would have everyone coming in and saying the same thing," he said.
The WTA did go back and award Evonne Goolagong the No. 1 ranking for two weeks in 1976, correcting the original records, though the ATP does not see the two cases as the same thing.
"There were just some records missing, which is a bit different to us,” noted Kermode. “We’ve got loads of records missing, but even so, the rankings were done 13 times that year. We’re not talking about missing weeks. It’s just that the rankings were simply not published on a weekly basis at that time.”
Vilas declined to be interviewed but was said to be disappointed by the decision.
As things stand, records state that 25 men have reached No. 1 in the ATP rankings.