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

L Browne
reaches
Serena Williams

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

2,410 players examined
  1. 1 meeting01May 25, 1981
    View L Browne × Miranda Yates
  2. 1 meeting10January 7, 1980
    View Miranda Yates × Anne Minter
  3. 2 meetings02October 1, 1989 — June 24, 1991
    View Anne Minter × Arantxa Sanchez Vicario
  4. 7 meetings43January 11, 1998 — August 14, 2000
    View Arantxa Sanchez Vicario × Serena Williams

Parallel routes

One search may have several correct answers.

Besides the detailed route, we found 4 more sequences with the same 4 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 →