Talk:Bill Scanlon

message: The page presently reports that:
::"Later that summer, Scanlon defeated world #4 Adriano Panatta at the US Open and, with two wins over former world #1 Ilie Nastase in early 1977, climbed the rankings to #23 by March of 1977."
Can anyone verify that this is true?  The ATP's Web site does not confirm it, but it also reports no ranking at all for March of 1977.  It reports a ranking of #52 as of December 12, 1976, and #40 as of July 2, 1977, but lists no ranking for any dates in between.
Here's the problem in detail:  The ATP's Web site does not report players' historical rankings on a week-by-week basis.  (At least not for any players back in the 1970s.)  Instead it gives them at irregular intervals; usually it reports them roughly every 6 months, but sometimes it reports them at shorter intervals.  And WHEN it reports them at shorter intervals, it does so whether the player's ranking has changed or not, and usually reports them as of the same odd-ball dates for every player.  So whatever produces this irregular pattern, it is not a policy of simply reporting a given player's ranking only when it has changed.
Thus, for example, the first 4 rankings reported for Bill Scanlon after he turned pro and first had a ranking at all are as of December 12, 1976, July 2, 1977, August 23, 1977, and August 30, 1977.  The rankings tables of other players active at that time (e.g., Ilie Nastase, Adriano Panatta) all contain entries for those same four dates, and for no other dates within the covered time period.
(The December and July dates fit the roughly-every-6-months pattern, but the two August dates — just a week apart from each other — are exceptional.  The previous and following years contain no such anomalous extra listings for either Scanlon or Nastase, either in August or in any other month.  However, Panatta's page contains one extra listing for 1976 (August 24) that the other two players' pages lack.  Obviously the ATP is inconsistent in various ways in its selection of listing dates for the ranking listings on its Web site.)
The claim that Scanlon had a ranking of #23 in the world as of March 1977 was introduced by Bottlebrush2070 in the first of his (or her) three edits made on May 20 and 21, 2014 — the same person who told us that Adriano Panatta was ranked #3 in the world when Scanlon defeated him at the 1976 US Open.  In the case of Panatta, we know that the ranking of #3 reported by Bottlebrush2070 must be false — that he could not have climbed to #3 a week or so after he reached #4 (August 24, 1976) — because the ATP Web site also tells us that Panatta's career high was #4; Panatta never had a world ranking of #3.  However, in regard to Scanlon, it may be possible — if the ATP did in fact calculate new, revised rankings every week even back then, as I believe it does nowadays — that he did achieve a ranking of #23 in the world as of March 1977, and the ATP merely fails to report his ranking for that date on its Web site.
(Bottlebrush2070 contributed a substantial amount of additional information to the page, most of which I believe is accurate — or at least have no reason to doubt — and all of which I consider illuminating.  So I am not attacking him or her, or suggesting that everything he or she added should be double-checked or viewed with suspicion.  But he/she did make at least one error, and maybe two.)
So, can anyone verify that Scanlon's ranking really did rise from #52 on December 12, 1976 to #23 sometime in March of 1977, before falling back down to #40 as of July 2, 1977 (and then climbing back to #37 as of both August 23 and August 30, 1977)?
Bottlebrush2070's claim sounds good, and makes a lot of sense in light of Scanlon's victories over Panatta (ranked #4 at the time) and Nastase (ranked #3 at the time, or at least somewhere between #3 and #7).  Wins over top players boost a player's ranking way more than wins over lesser players, as one would expect.  But I presently know of no way to verify the specific figure of 23, or to find any ranking for Scanlon (or any other player!) as of March 1977 other than his December 12, 1976 ranking of #52.
(Nor do I have any idea or suggestion what to do if we cannot verify Bottlebrush2070's figure of #23.  While I cannot verify that it is true, I certainly have no reason to believe it false.  Nor do I know what to substitute for it.  "Climbed the rankings to #37 by August of 1977" does not sound nearly as impressive, and does not appear sufficiently reflective of Scanlon's flurry of wins over top-10 players between August of 1976 and early 1977, so shortly after he turned pro.)
Sources:
ATP World Tour – Tennis Players: Bill Scanlon
ATP World Tour – Tennis Players: Ilie Nastase
ATP World Tour – Tennis Players: Adriano Panatta
Only 3 players have a ranking entry for August 24, 1976: Panatta, Raymond Moore, and Henry Bunis.
ATP Singles Rankings since 1973
2001:5B0:24FF:3CF0:0:0:0:34 (talk) 11:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings