During the last few weeks, I saw some riveting performances on clay, where Novak Djokovic defeated the current world number one, Rafael Nadal twice in two weeks (Madrid Masters - 7/5, 6/4 & Italian Masters 6/4. 6/4). This together with the fact that the 2nd Grand Slam tournament for the calendar year, French Open is just around the corner gave me the idea of posting something on the records of Grand Slam Tennis.
I guess it's not easy to jot down all those records and highlights in the history of the Grand Slam tournaments through a single post. Therefore, I've names this as "Grand Slam Tennis - 1". I will continue the topic with few more posts in the near future. So here we go!!!
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| (Clockwise) Maureen Connolly, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Roger Federer and Rod Laver |
- The Grand Slam tournaments in Tennis are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, played in that order. Currently, both the Australian Open and the US Open are played on hard courts, while the French Open is played on clay, and Wimbledon is played on grass.
- Winning all four majors with an Olympic Gold medal is known as a “Golden Slam”, and in 1988 Steffi Graf achieved this rare feat by winning all four majors and the Gold Medal in 1988 Seoul Olympics.
- Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have all won these four majors, but NOT in a single calendar year.
- In 1938, Don Budge became the first ever tennis player (male or female) to win a Grand Slam in a single calendar year, by winning all four majors.
- Maureen Connolly is the first woman to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, when she won all of them in 1953.
- Rod Laver of Australia is the only tennis player to have won all four Grand Slam majors twice, in a single calendar year, by winning them in 1962 & 1969.
- Frank Sedgeman and Ken McGregor are the only men’s doubles partners to have won all four major tournaments in a single calendar year in the history of tennis (1951).
- Roger Federer, whom I consider as the greatest tennis player of all time, holds the record for most number of Grand Slam titles (singles) in the history of tennis with a total of 16 titles. Federer also holds the record for the most number of Grand Slam finals (singles – men) with 22 appearances.
- Margaret Court holds the record for the most number of Grand Slam singles titles in the history of tennis (male or female) with a total of 24 titles.
- The table below outlines the most number of Grand Slam winners in each of the majors.
| Tournament | Most Number of Wins (singles) | |
| Men’s | Women’s | |
| Australian Open | Roy Emerson (6) | Margaret Court (11) |
| French Open | Bjorn Borg (6) | Chris Evert (7) |
| Wimbledon | William Renshaw, Pete Sampras (7) | Martina Navratilova (9) |
| US Open | Bill Larned, Bill Tillden, Richard Sears (7) | Molla Mallory (8) |
