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

P Eckert
reaches
Roger Federer

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

2,636 players examined
  1. 1 meeting01January 1, 1968
    View P Eckert × Brian Bowman
  2. 1 meeting01January 1, 1968
    View Brian Bowman × Bill Bowrey
  3. 1 meeting10December 16, 1974
    View Bill Bowrey × Paul Mcnamee
  4. 1 meeting01September 1, 1987
    View Paul Mcnamee × Michael Chang
  5. 5 meetings14January 17, 2000 — August 26, 2002
    View Michael Chang × Roger Federer

Parallel routes

One search may have several correct answers.

Besides the detailed route, we found 1 more sequence 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 →