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.

Choose both ends of the storyComplete archive · walkovers excluded
Historical windowOnly matches played within this period may create links.
No date limit

Shortest path found

Cilla Van Der Walt
reaches
Serena Williams

Historical windowComplete archive

The connection uses 3 links and 4 careers. Every step below represents a recorded head-to-head meeting within the selected window.

The complete route

Career by career

796 players examined
  1. 1 meeting10September 12, 1983
    View Kate Latham × Steffi Graf
  2. 2 meetings11January 11, 1999 — March 5, 1999
    View Steffi Graf × Serena Williams

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 →