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
John Spiegel
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
01 OriginOpen career →2 meetings20March 13, 1992 — April 27, 1992View Pete Sampras × Jimmy Connors →02 BridgeOpen career →Jimmy Connors
1 meeting10July 24, 1971View Jimmy Connors × Jim Osborne →03 BridgeOpen career →Jim Osborne
1 meeting10September 22, 1968View Jim Osborne × John Spiegel →04 DestinationOpen career →John Spiegel
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.
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeBill Scanlon
- BridgeTom Leonard
- DestinationJohn Spiegel
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeJohn McEnroe
- BridgeTom Leonard
- DestinationJohn Spiegel
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeTim Wilkison
- BridgeTom Leonard
- DestinationJohn Spiegel
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeJohn Fitzgerald
- BridgeJim Osborne
- DestinationJohn Spiegel
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 →