Origin
Open career →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
Pete Sampras
reaches
J Bentley
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
01 3 meetings21August 28, 1989 — September 22, 1995View Pete Sampras × Mats Wilander →02 BridgeOpen career →Mats Wilander
1 meeting10November 2, 1981View Mats Wilander × Stan Smith →03 BridgeOpen career →Stan Smith
1 meeting10July 14, 1969View Stan Smith × Luis Ayala →04 BridgeOpen career →Luis Ayala
1 meeting10June 3, 1968View Luis Ayala × J Bentley →05 DestinationOpen career →J Bentley
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.
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeMats Wilander
- BridgeBrian Gottfried
- BridgeLuis Ayala
- DestinationJ Bentley
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeGuy Forget
- BridgeBrian Gottfried
- BridgeLuis Ayala
- DestinationJ Bentley
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeEric Jelen
- BridgeStan Smith
- BridgeLuis Ayala
- DestinationJ Bentley
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeStefan Edberg
- BridgeBrian Gottfried
- BridgeLuis Ayala
- DestinationJ Bentley
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 →