By U.B. Acharya

The term ‘GRAND SLAM’ was originally used in the game of Contract Bridge. In this game if a declarer claims that he would win all the 13 tricks and achieves that goal, then it is a Grand Slam. Let me now explain in detail how this term came into vogue in tennis.

In the middle of 19th century, Great Britain, its colonies, Western Europe and USA started conducting District (or county)-level, State-level and National-level Tennis Tournaments. Also, in order to find which country was the best tennis playing country, an Inter-Country Team Championship was started in 1900 and was called as the Davis Cup. Dwight Davis was a US politician and a good tennis player and since he initiated this idea, the Cup was named after him. Initially it was only between Great Britain and USA but now it has been expanded to include more than 150 countries.

For the first 75 years, only Great Britain, USA, France and Australia won the Davis Cup. Hence the National Tennis Championships of these four countries were distinguished as ‘Grand Slam’ events. The only difference with Great Britain is that the Tournament which is famously referred to as the Wimbledon Championship is not a National Championship but started in 1877 as a Club Championship of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’s Annual Championship. Because it is the oldest of the four Grand Slam events, it is the most prestigious.

The winners of these four Grand Slam events were known as ‘Major’ title holders. In 1937, an American named Don Budge won the Wimbledon and US National Championship and followed these with victories in Australian and French National Championships in 1938. As a holder of all four Major titles consecutively, he called himself as the Grand Slam Champion but the experts said that he would have to win all four Major titles in the same calendar year. He then went on to win Wimbledon and US National Championships thus became the first Grand Slam Champion.

Subsequently, Australian great Rod Laver won the Grand Slam in 1962 as an amateur and won again in 1969 in the Open era. Thus, he is the only player so far to have won two Grand Slam Championships.

After some years (though I do not know when), tennis writers started crowning a single Major title winner as the Grand Slam Champion! For example, someone like Chuck McKinley who has only one Major title to his credit was also referred to as a Grand Slam Champion. To differentiate players of this category and the real Grand Slam Champions, the experts coined a new title as Calendar Grand Slam. Thus, Budge and Laver are the only two with this title.

In 2015, Novak Djokovic won the Wimbledon and US Open titles and followed these with Australian and French Open in 2016. Thus, he was the holder of all four Major titles continuously. This feat was named as the Individual Grand Slam. Meanwhile, there are eight players who have won all the four Grand Slam events at least once in their life time. Apart from Budge, Laver and Djokovic others who have this distinction are Fred Perry, Roy Emerson, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. This feat is now referred to as the Career Grand Slam.

There is yet another term called Golden Grand Slam. This is Calendar Grand Slam plus Olympics Gold medal. No man has achieved this feat but among the ladies Steffi Graf has achieved this impossible title. I wonder how many new Grand Slam titles will be invented in the future.

Continuing the history of Grand Slam tennis, there are seven occasions where players have won the first two Major titles but could not win the Wimbledon title thus losing the chance of a Calendar Grand Slam. The players involved are Ken Rosewall (1953), Emerson (1963 & 1967), Mats Wilander (1988), Jim Courier (1992) and lastly Djokovic in 2016 and 2023.

Even more unfortunate are three players who won the first three Major events in the year but failed to win the US Open. They are Jack Crawford in 1933 who lost to Fred Perry in US National. The other two are Lew Hoad in 1956 (lost to Rosewall) and Djokovic in 2021 when he lost to Daniil Medvedev in US Open.

I happen to believe that the Calendar Grand Slam is the only ‘Asli’ Grand Slam and  other categories are ‘Naqli’ Grand Slams. Now you, as the reader, can decide whether you want to distinguish Budge and Laver as true Grand Slam Champions and rest of the 150 (still counting) Champions as Major title holders or call all the 152 players as Grand Slam Champions. First one in this list is Spencer Gore (Wimbledon 1877) and the last one is Carlos Alcaraz Garfia (Wimbledon 2023).