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
Jean Rickson
reaches
Serena Williams
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 OriginOpen career →1 meeting01June 2, 1969View Jean Rickson × Dorothy Knode →02 BridgeOpen career →Dorothy Knode
1 meeting01May 26, 1969View Dorothy Knode × Francoise Durr →03 BridgeOpen career →Francoise Durr
3 meetings21June 18, 1973 — February 28, 1977View Francoise Durr × Wendy Turnbull →04 BridgeOpen career →Wendy Turnbull
3 meetings21November 19, 1984 — January 27, 1986View Wendy Turnbull × Steffi Graf →05 BridgeOpen career →Steffi Graf
2 meetings11January 11, 1999 — March 5, 1999View Steffi Graf × Serena Williams →06 DestinationOpen career →Serena Williams
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.
- OriginJean Rickson
- BridgeDorothy Knode
- BridgeFrancoise Durr
- BridgeWendy Turnbull
- BridgeLarisa Savchenko
- DestinationSerena Williams
- OriginJean Rickson
- BridgeDorothy Knode
- BridgeFrancoise Durr
- BridgeWendy Turnbull
- BridgeJana Novotna
- DestinationSerena Williams
- OriginJean Rickson
- BridgeDorothy Knode
- BridgeFrancoise Durr
- BridgeWendy Turnbull
- BridgeMary Joe Fernandez
- DestinationSerena Williams
- OriginJean Rickson
- BridgeDorothy Knode
- BridgeFrancoise Durr
- BridgeDianne Fromholtz
- BridgeSteffi Graf
- DestinationSerena 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 →