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
Steffi Graf
reaches
S Carter
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
01 OriginOpen career →1 meeting10February 5, 1985View Steffi Graf × Virginia Wade →02 BridgeOpen career →Virginia Wade
20 meetings164April 17, 1968 — May 20, 1974View Virginia Wade × Winnie Shaw →03 BridgeOpen career →Winnie Shaw
1 meeting10November 8, 1971View Winnie Shaw × Penelope Hardgrave →04 BridgeOpen career →Penelope Hardgrave
1 meeting10July 14, 1969View Penelope Hardgrave × Hilary Merrick →05 BridgeOpen career →Hilary Merrick
1 meeting10July 14, 1969View Hilary Merrick × S Carter →06 DestinationOpen career →S Carter
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.
- OriginSteffi Graf
- BridgeChris Evert
- BridgeWinnie Shaw
- BridgePenelope Hardgrave
- BridgeHilary Merrick
- DestinationS Carter
- OriginSteffi Graf
- BridgeSue Barker
- BridgeWinnie Shaw
- BridgePenelope Hardgrave
- BridgeHilary Merrick
- DestinationS Carter
- OriginSteffi Graf
- BridgeLea Antonoplis
- BridgeWinnie Shaw
- BridgePenelope Hardgrave
- BridgeHilary Merrick
- DestinationS Carter
- OriginSteffi Graf
- BridgeYvonne Vermaak
- BridgeWinnie Shaw
- BridgePenelope Hardgrave
- BridgeHilary Merrick
- DestinationS Carter
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 →