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
Russell Barlow
Historical windowComplete archive
The connection uses 2 links and 3 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 meetings20June 12, 1989 — October 14, 1991View Pete Sampras × Tom Nijssen →02 BridgeOpen career →Tom Nijssen
1 meeting10November 21, 1988View Tom Nijssen × Russell Barlow →03 DestinationOpen career →Russell Barlow
Parallel routes
One search may have several correct answers.
Besides the detailed route, we found 4 more sequences with the same 2 links. Every route travels the shortest possible distance in the archive.
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeMagnus Gustafsson
- DestinationRussell Barlow
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeCarl Uwe Steeb
- DestinationRussell Barlow
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeNeil Borwick
- DestinationRussell Barlow
- OriginPete Sampras
- BridgeRamesh Krishnan
- DestinationRussell Barlow
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 →