History
World Championship Tennis was co-founded by Lamar Hunt and New Orleans sports promoter David Dixon, who had earlier witnessed the deplorable conditions of the professional circuit before the open era. WCT became the major professional tennis tour of players under contract of the early seventies. It instituted a tie-breaker system and outfitted players with colored clothing, a radical idea at that time. WCT also strongly encouraged the audience to cheer for players, rather than politely applaud, as the more staid tennis audiences had done before. They publicly emphasized their prize money structure and special bonus pool as an incentive to attract players.
After starting with the "Handsome Eight", the original eight players (Dennis Ralston, John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Cliff Drysdale, Earl Buchholz, Niki Pilić, Roger Taylor and Pierre Barthès), the first WCT tournament was held in March 1968 and the WCT circuit grew to 21 tournaments in 1971 around the globe. By early 1970, the WCT had signed other players (Marty Riessen, Ray Moore, Tom Okker, Arthur Ashe) and absorbed the other major professional organization, the National Tennis League (NTL), which had under contract some of the top-ranked pros of the day, including Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Andrés Gimeno, Pancho Gonzáles, Roy Emerson, and Fred Stolle.
At the end of the 1971 WCT season the top eight players from the season were seeded according to their WCT rankings and played a year end championship tournament in November. This was held about two weeks before the similar championship of the rival Grand Prix circuit, called The Masters. For commercial reasons, from 1972 this championship was usually held in the spring in Dallas, Texas. This became known as the WCT Finals it was played on indoor carpet. The tournament ran for 19 years and the last championship was held in 1989. The format for this event was adopted by the Association of Tennis Professionals for the year end Tour Finals.
The WCT tour was merged into the Grand Prix circuit in 1978. The WCT withdrew from 1982 to 1984, and at this time sued the Men's Tennis Council who organized the Grand Prix circuit. A settlement resulted in WCT's reincorporation into the Grand Prix in 1985.
1989 was the last season of WCT. The ATP established its own tennis circuit from 1990. The WCT had an important impact on the development of tennis certainly from the players prospective. Although there were fewer tournaments rivalry, the prize money for Grand Prix Circuit was much larger.
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