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

Pete Sampras
reaches
Cross

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

6,172 players examined
  1. 2 meetings20March 13, 1992 — April 27, 1992
    View Pete Sampras × Jimmy Connors
  2. 5 meetings50March 4, 1976 — October 31, 1978
    View Jimmy Connors × Tony Roche
  3. 3 meetings30April 4, 1971 — July 29, 1972
    View Tony Roche × Roy Barth
  4. 1 meeting10June 22, 1968
    View Roy Barth × John Powers
  5. 1 meeting10June 22, 1968
    View John Powers × Cross

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.

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 →