The four major annual tennis
tournaments are also known as the Grand Slams but winning just one of
them does not mean a player has achieved a Tennis Grand Slam.
A Grand Slam is not an event but a
statistic and it's a very rare occurrence.
The four major tournaments are the
Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. The
Australian and US Opens are played on hard courts, the French Open
on clay and Wimbledon on grass.
To win a Grand Slam a player must
win all four of the major tournaments in a single calendar year. A
considerable feat and a feat only ever achieved by a handful of
players throughout the history of the game. So hard in fact that
1982, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) redefined the Grand
Slam as simply winning four consecutive titles that could span two
years.
This
redefinition of the Grand Slam by the ITF was the source of great
controversy in the tennis world and, in the years since, the ITF has
distanced itself from the 1982 decision, reverting to the
traditional calendar-year definition of the Grand Slam.
Only two men
have ever won a true Grand Slam, Don Budge in 1938 and Rod Laver in
1962 and 1969.
Only three women have ever
won a true Grand Slam, Maureen Brinker, 1953, Margaret Court, 1970
and Steffi Graf 1988. Graf also won the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and this became known as her 'Golden Slam'.
No mention there of the great players
of today, such as Federer or Nadal or the Williams sisters, or even
of the recent past, player like McEnroe or Borg, Navratilova or Billy
Jean King. That's how hard it is to win a true Tennis Grand Slam, the
greatest prize in the sport of tennis.
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