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
James Shaffer
reaches
Pete Sampras
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
01 1 meeting01April 5, 1971View James Shaffer × Harry Coe →02 BridgeOpen career →Harry Coe
1 meeting01April 8, 1968View Harry Coe × Istvan Gulyas →03 BridgeOpen career →Istvan Gulyas
1 meeting10August 17, 1970View Istvan Gulyas × Graham Stilwell →04 BridgeOpen career →Graham Stilwell
1 meeting01October 7, 1973View Graham Stilwell × Jimmy Connors →05 BridgeOpen career →Jimmy Connors
2 meetings02March 13, 1992 — April 27, 1992View Jimmy Connors × Pete Sampras →06 DestinationOpen career →Pete Sampras
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.
- OriginJames Shaffer
- BridgeHarry Coe
- BridgeIstvan Gulyas
- BridgeJun Kuki
- BridgeJimmy Connors
- DestinationPete Sampras
- OriginJames Shaffer
- BridgeHarry Coe
- BridgeIstvan Gulyas
- BridgeJun Kuki
- BridgeBill Scanlon
- DestinationPete Sampras
- OriginJames Shaffer
- BridgeHarry Coe
- BridgeIstvan Gulyas
- BridgeJun Kuki
- BridgeRamesh Krishnan
- DestinationPete Sampras
- OriginJames Shaffer
- BridgeHarry Coe
- BridgeIstvan Gulyas
- BridgeJan Kodes
- 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 →