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

Coco Gauff
reaches
Orie Sasaki

Historical windowComplete archive

The connection uses 5 links and 6 careers. Every step below represents a recorded head-to-head meeting within the selected window.

The complete route

Career by career

3,158 players examined
  1. 2 meetings20July 1, 2019 — January 20, 2020
    View Coco Gauff × Venus Williams
  2. 5 meetings41May 24, 1999 — October 1, 2007
    View Venus Williams × Alicia Molik
  3. 1 meeting10September 7, 1998
    View Alicia Molik × Kiyoko Yazawa
  4. 2 meetings11September 28, 1996 — September 7, 1998
    View Kiyoko Yazawa × Sachie Umehara
  5. 1 meeting10September 8, 1997
    View Sachie Umehara × Orie Sasaki

Parallel routes

One search may have several correct answers.

Besides the detailed route, we found 4 more sequences with the same 5 links. Every route travels the shortest possible distance in the archive.

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 →