Большой шлем в теннисе: виды и история

Tennis term for winning all four major championships

The Grand Slam in tennis is the achievement of winning all four major championships in one discipline in a calendar year. In doubles, a Grand Slam may be achieved as a team or as an individual with different partners. Winning all four major championships consecutively but not within the same calendar year is referred to as a "non calendar year Grand Slam", while winning the four majors at any point during the course of a career is known as a "Career Grand Slam". The Grand Slam tournaments, also referred to as majors, are the world's four most important annual professional tennis tournaments. They offer the most ranking points, prize money, public and media attention, the greatest strength and size of field, and the longest matches for men (best of five sets, best of three for the women). The tournaments are overseen by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), rather than the separate men and women's tour organizing bodies, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA), but both the ATP and WTA award ranking points based on players' performances in them. The four Grand Slam tournaments are the Australian Open in January, the French Open from late May to early June, Wimbledon in late June to early July, and the US Open in late August to early September, with each played over two weeks. The Australian and the United States tournaments are played on hard courts, the French on clay, and Wimbledon on grass. Wimbledon is the oldest tournament, founded in 1877, followed by the US in 1881, the French in 1891 (major in 1925), and the Australian in 1905, but it was not until 1925 that all four were held as officially sanctioned majors.

The French Open, also known as Roland Garros, is the second Grand Slam tournament of the year, played annually in late May and early June. It was first held in 1891 on the sand courts of the Societé de Sport de Île de Puteaux, in Puteaux, Île de France, and repeatedly changed venues over the years before settling on the clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, where it has been contested since 1928. Both the venue and the tournament are named "Roland Garros" after the pioneering French aviator. the French Open is the only Grand Slam tournament played on a red clay surface. It is generally considered to be the most physically demanding tennis tournament in the world. Until 1925, the tournament was known as the Championnats de France (French Championships), and only French players and foreign members of French clubs were eligible to compete in it. From 1925 onward, the French Championships became open to all international amateurs and was rebranded as Internationaux de France (French Internationals), The 2018 edition saw a record attendance of 480,575 spectators.

The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known as Wimbledon, is the third Grand Slam tournament of the year, played annually in late June and early July. It was first held in 1877 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, at the time located off Nursery Road in Wimbledon, London, England. The tournament has always been contested at this club, which moved to its present site off Church Road in 1922 in order to increase its attendance capacity. Wimbledon is organized by a committee of management consisting of nineteen members, with twelve being club members and the remaining seven nominated by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). As the world's oldest tennis event, it is widely regarded as the most prestigious tennis tournament, and it is known for its commitment to longstanding traditions and guidelines. It is one of few tournaments and the only Grand Slam event that is still played on grass courts, tennis's original surface, and where "lawn tennis" originated in the 1800s. Players are required to wear all white attire during matches, and they are referred to as "Gentlemen" and "Ladies". There is also a tradition where the players are asked to bow or curtsy towards the Royal Box upon entering or leaving Centre Court when either the Prince of Wales or the monarch are present. The tournament was given the title "World Grass Court Championships" by the International Lawn Tennis Federation between 1912 and 1923, and was designated a major championship following the abolition of the three ILTF World Championships. with the finals shown live and in full on television in the country each year. The BBC's broadcast of the 1967 edition was among the first colour television broadcasts in the UK. Today, the event has draws that host 256 singles players, 128 doubles teams and 32 mixed doubles teams, with the total prize money for the 2021 tournament being £35,016,000, and 500,397 people attending the 2019 edition. The tournament has some of the longest running sponsorships in sports history, having been associated with Slazenger since 1902, and with the Robinsons fruit drink brand since 1935.

The US Open is the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament of the year, played annually in late August and early September. It was first held in August 1881 on grass courts at the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. The tournament constantly changed venues in its early years, with each discipline continuing to be held separately at various venues until 1923, when the tournament settled at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City. Organized by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), previously known as the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) until 1920, and as United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) until 1975, it is the only Grand Slam tournament to have been played every year since its inception. In 1997, Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis stadium in the world with a capacity of 23,771 spectators, was opened. It is named after Arthur Ashe, the winner of the 1968 tournament—the first in which professionals were allowed to compete. Over the years, the tournament has pioneered changes and promoted ideas that other tournaments later implemented for themselves, including the introduction of a tiebreak system to decide the outcome of sets tied at 6–6 in 1970, being the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money to the men's and women's events in 1975, the installation of floodlights in 1975 in order to allow matches to be played at night, and the introduction of instant replay reviews of line calls using the Hawk Eye computer system in 2006, the first Grand Slam tournament to do so. The ILTF officially designated it as a major tournament in 1923. Today, the event has draws that host 256 singles players, 128 doubles teams and 32 mixed doubles teams, with the total prize money for the 2020 tournament being US$53,400,000, and a US television viewership of 700,000. Since 2004, the tournament has been preceded by the US Open Series, composed of North American hardcourt professional tournaments that lead up to and culminate with the US Open itself. The season is organized by the USTA as a way to focus more attention on American tennis tournaments by getting more of them on domestic television.

The first player to win all four majors in a calendar year and thus complete the Grand Slam was Don Budge in 1938. To date, five singles players (two men, three women), nine doubles players (four men, five women) and one junior (boy) have completed the Grand Slam. In wheelchair disciplines, two singles players (one quad, one woman) and twelve doubles players (four men, eight women) have achieved it. Margaret Court is the only player to complete the Grand Slam in two disciplines, singles and mixed doubles (twice), while wheelchair players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott have completed one in both the singles and doubles disciplines of their respective classes. However, in a 1983 letter from ITF General Secretary David Gray to tennis journalist Paul Fein, Gray claimed that it was never the intention of ITF to alter anything regarding the definition of the classic Grand Slam. There seems to be some confusion. The ITF's only initiative in this matter has been the organisation of the offer of a bonus of $1 million to any player who holds all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously  Despite all that we have read on this matter, it has never been my Committee of Management's intention to alter the basis of the classic Grand Slam i. e., the capture of all four titles in a year. Writing in 1982, before the ITF had announced their bonus, Neil Amdur of the New York Times said, "Now the sport spins nervously under the influence of big dollars and even bigger egos and tradition has almost gone the way of white balls and long flannels  If the four major tournaments want to offer a $1 million incentive for any player in the future who can sweep their titles—and such talks have been rumored—that bonus would be a welcome addition. But changing what the Grand Slam is all about is like a baseball player believing that he 'hit for the cycle' after slugging a single, double and triple in the first game of a doubleheader and a home run in his first time at bat in the second game." When Martina Navratilova won the 1984 French Open and became the reigning champion of all four women's singles discipline, she was the first player to receive the bonus prize in recognition of her achievement. Some media outlets did, indeed, say that she had won a Grand Slam. Curry Kirkpatrick of Sports Illustrated wrote "Whether the Slam was Grand or Bland or a commercial sham tainted with an asterisk the size of a tennis ball, Martina Navratilova finally did it." When Steffi Graf completed the Grand Slam in 1988, George Vecsey wrote, "Even the International Tennis Federation, which should have more respect for history, ruled in 1982 that winning any four straight majors constituted a Grand Slam—and offered a $1 million bonus for it  But many tennis people, and most writers, and probably most fans, too, did not accept the new rules, and the ITF has dropped the gimmick." When Rafael Nadal was on the verge of completing a non calendar year Grand Slam at the 2011 Australian Open, one writer observed, "Most traditionalists insist that the 'Grand Slam' should refer only to winning all four titles in a calendar year, although the constitution of the International Tennis Federation, the sports governing body, spells out that 'players who hold all four of these titles at the same time achieve the Grand Slam'." As of 2012, however, the ambiguity was resolved, with the ITF's current constitution stating "The Grand Slam titles are the championships of Australia, France, the United States of America and Wimbledon. Players who hold all four of these titles in one calendar year achieve the 'Grand Slam'." and five women (Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Serena Williams).

The following list is for those players who achieved a non calendar year Grand Slam by holding the four major titles at the same time but not in the calendar year. Only six players have completed a Career Grand Slam in both singles and doubles: one male (Roy Emerson) and five females (Margaret Court, Doris Hart, Shirley Fry Irvin, Martina Navratilova, and Serena Williams). Court, Hart, and Navratilova are the only players to have completed a "Boxed Set", that is, winning all four major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Only three players have completed a Boxed Set, all females: Doris Hart, Margaret Court, and Martina Navratilova. Court's second Boxed Set, completed in 1969, spans the Amateur and Open Eras, but she later completed a set entirely within the Open Era in 1973. when Steffi Graf won that year's Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon Championships, and US Open, and Olympic gold medal in singles. Graf is the only singles player to have won all five tournaments in a calendar year. Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott also accomplished the feat, in wheelchair singles and wheelchair quad singles respectively. Similarly, the term "non calendar year Golden Slam" has been used since 2013, when Bob and Mike Bryan won the 2012 Olympics, 2012 US Open, 2013 Australian Open, 2013 French Open and 2013 Wimbledon Championships doubles titles consecutively.

Soon after the Open Era began in 1968, the new professional tours each held a year end championship; elite tournaments featuring only the top performers of the season. The return of tennis to the Olympics in 1988 gave rise to the notion of a "Super Slam" as a combination of the Golden Slam and year end championship title. The year end championships are currently the ATP Finals for the men's tour, WTA Finals for the women's tour, and the Wheelchair Tennis Masters for the wheelchair tennis tour. In 2021, Diede de Groot became the first player to win all six titles in a calendar year, doing so in women's wheelchair singles. Steffi Graf achieved a "non calendar year Super Slam" in 1988 by the aforementioned titles consecutively, with her Golden Slam in 1988 following her victory at the 1987 Virginia Slims Championships, the women's year end championship at the time.