Origin
Open career →Tennis’s living graph
Bridges Across
Eras
Two players do not need to have shared a court for their stories to be connected. Find the shortest chain of head-to-head meetings between them.
Shortest path found
Bob Goldbeck
reaches
Pete Sampras
Historical windowComplete archive
The connection uses 4 links and 5 careers. Every step below represents a recorded head-to-head meeting within the selected window.
The complete route
Career by career
01 1 meeting01September 22, 1968View Bob Goldbeck × Robert Potthast →02 BridgeOpen career →Robert Potthast
1 meeting01September 2, 1970View Robert Potthast × Ken Rosewall →03 BridgeOpen career →Ken Rosewall
8 meetings17September 18, 1972 — November 14, 1977View Ken Rosewall × Jimmy Connors →04 BridgeOpen career →Jimmy Connors
2 meetings02March 13, 1992 — April 27, 1992View Jimmy Connors × Pete Sampras →05 DestinationOpen career →Pete Sampras
Parallel routes
One search may have several correct answers.
Besides the detailed route, we found 3 more sequences with the same 4 links. Every route travels the shortest possible distance in the archive.
- OriginBob Goldbeck
- BridgeRobert Potthast
- BridgeKen Rosewall
- BridgeTim Wilkison
- DestinationPete Sampras
- OriginBob Goldbeck
- BridgeRobert Potthast
- BridgeKen Rosewall
- BridgeJohn Fitzgerald
- DestinationPete Sampras
- OriginBob Goldbeck
- BridgeRobert Potthast
- BridgeRichard Gonzalez
- BridgeJimmy Connors
- DestinationPete Sampras
How we calculate it
A search from both sides of history.
The portal traverses the head-to-head graph from both careers at the same time and stops at the first proven minimum distance. When a period is selected, only matches inside that window create links; walkovers never create connections.
Reverse the route →