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

Steffi Graf
reaches
Marian Munroe

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

2,607 players examined
  1. 1 meeting10February 5, 1985
    View Steffi Graf × Virginia Wade
  2. 4 meetings31June 4, 1968 — September 2, 1970
    View Virginia Wade × Peaches Bartkowicz
  3. 1 meeting10August 13, 1968
    View Benita Senn × Marian Munroe

Parallel routes

One search may have several correct answers.

Besides the detailed route, we found 2 more sequences with the same 4 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 →