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

Leslie Allen
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

2,174 players examined
  1. 6 meetings06May 28, 1979 — March 23, 1987
    View Leslie Allen × Wendy Turnbull
  2. 3 meetings21November 19, 1984 — January 27, 1986
    View Wendy Turnbull × Steffi Graf
  3. 2 meetings11January 11, 1999 — March 5, 1999
    View Steffi Graf × Serena Williams

Parallel routes

One search may have several correct answers.

Besides the detailed route, we found 4 more sequences with the same 3 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 →