They publicly emphasized their prize money structure and special bonus pool as an incentive to attract top players.
World Championship Tennis was founded in September 1967 by sports promoter David Dixon, who earlier witnessed the dreary conditions of the professional circuit before the open era when he visited a poorly promoted match between Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall.
[1] In August of that year, he had presented his idea of a pro tennis tour to Lamar Hunt and Al Hill Jr., who agreed to invest.
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 January 1968 in Sydney, Australia and used the VASSS scoring system.
According to sportswriter Rod Humphries, this first event was a hastily organized tournament held in the parking lot of the Channel 7 television studios in Epping and was won by Tony Roche.
[7] By early 1970, the WCT had signed other players (Marty Riessen, Ray Moore, Tom Okker, Arthur Ashe) and in July it acquired the player contracts of the other major professional organization, the National Tennis League (NTL), which had under contract players from the former professional group of Jack Kramer, namely Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzáles as well as Andrés Gimeno, Roy Emerson, and Fred Stolle.
This was held about two weeks before the similar championship of the rival Grand Prix circuit, called The Masters.
For commercial reasons, from 1972 onward this championship, played on indoor carpet, was usually held in the spring in Dallas, Texas and became known as the WCT Finals.
On 30 April 1981 WCT announced its withdrawal from the Grand Prix circuit and the establishment of its own full calendar season for 1982.
According to Lamar Hunt the reasons for the withdrawal were the restrictions placed on them by the Men's Professional Council, the administrators of the Grand Prix circuit.
The prize money offered to the winner, Arthur Ashe, was $25,000 compared to the $50,000 won by Ken Rosewall for the main edition in May.
A decade later there were three editions of the WCT Finals; the most important one in Dallas, and the others in autumn in Naples, Italy, and in winter (in January 1983) in Detroit, Michigan.