Talk:Grand Slam (tennis)

4R

On various pages I've noticed "4R" under Grand Slam statistics. What does that mean? Wolf O'Donnel (talk) 07:07, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Wolf O'Donnel: Without seeing the exact wording I would say fourth round. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:10, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Makes sense. Wolf O'Donnel (talk) 08:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Albeit, R4 is the more universally used abbreviation for fourth round in tournaments. Qwerty284651 (talk) 09:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I usually see it as 4R, but actually more often, in a major, it's written as the round of 16. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:16, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Or that. Qwerty284651 (talk) 09:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I wish it was R16, R32 etc in all of tennis project charts because it's clearer than 4R or 3R. In Slams 3R = R32 but in Masters 3R = R16. ForzaUV (talk) 09:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Depends on the size of the draw of one tournament, really. Qwerty284651 (talk) 09:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

The point is the size of the draw wouldn't matter with R64, R32, R16. The way it's done now in tennis charts, you really need to know the size of the draw to understand how many players left in the tournament by 4R, 3R or 2R. ForzaUV (talk) 10:39, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

You can always check the size of the draw by looking in the infobox of a tennis event's main page in the upper right-hand corner, therefore making it easier for readers to deduce, for example, which round is R4 or, in this case, 4R, by looking at said numbers to determine, whether it is the third or the fourth round. OR by visiting either ATP or WTA for 2021 you can see next to the short description of each annual tournament's draw size. Qwerty284651 (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

And almost all tennis press reports say 1st round, 2nd round, etc... So a person has to think when they see something different. Also you'll hear stats of something like "how many 1st round losses does Chris Evert have?" If all you had was she lost in the round of 32 at one event and the round of 64 at another, it tells you nothing of value. Both ways of doing it can be useful, we have simply decided on doing it the common way you hear it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Urgent update of this article

This is the article about the Grand Slam. In this article there is a section titled "other related concepts" pertaining to Grand Slam. Some of those are "channel slam" ie French-Wimbledon combo, "surface slam" ie majors won on different surface, there's even "golden slam" ie adding non-slam tournament such as Olympics, and even "super slam" adding year end championships. It's all fine. There's even "pro slam" which is made of professional major tournaments. In this case we see that the "slam" label is being awarded rather generously considering some those tournanents have zero connection to ITF or to these 4 tournaments that grew into current grand slam events. So how is it then possible not to have "World slam" mentioned? No mention of WGCC(Wimbledon), WHCC and WCCC? It's bizarre. ITF was formed in 1913 and there were top three events in the world at the time, official ITF world championships, the 1.0 iteration of ITF majors, including Wimbledon itself. Please add section to "World Slam" and Wilding being crowned triple ITF world champion in 1913 winning all 3 official majors. 93.142.155.12 (talk) 10:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Grand Slam (tennis)#History already says "Anthony Wilding of New Zealand won all three of those World Championships in 1913". The term "Grand Slam" is from 1933. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and doesn't make up words. We report what reliable sources say. I didn't find anything relevant with Google searches, and I don't see why it should be urgent to add an invented term for something that happened 109 years ago. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Can it be proven that such term as "World slam" does even exist? ABC paulista (talk) 16:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

NCYGS mutating into CYGS...makes sense?

I feel I have a legit question. The way these terms (ncygs and cygs) are understood and applied here in Wikipedia would suggest that ncygs can be achieved, but then could also mutate into CYGS and cease to exist? I don't feel such approach makes sense. If something is achieved as an accomplishment, how can it be erased? So my question would be, is this logical? Budge won 4 slams in a row from 1937 Wim until 1938 French and that was obviously NCYGS. He won another one, 1938 Wim to make it 5 in a row. What was that? Nothing? Ok. He then won 1938 USO, his 6th in a row. And since 4 were aligned in 1938, it's a CYGS in 1938 and then nothing else is talked about, but is it really accurate to disregard his wins at 1938 French and 1938 Wim? When he won trophies there, on both occasions he was the holder of all 4 slam titles and was credited with NCYGS at the 1938 French. And yet that is taken away from him? I understand the logic which would say that we shouldn't do double counting and have overlapping streaks but OTOH it's true that Budge was the holder of all 4 slam titles on 3 occasions and one of those was 1938 US which is CYGS. The way NCYGS is assumed here is that it is kinda standalone streak that you can achieve but also that can "disappear" once more prestigious streak (CYGS) is completed? So what would this mean is that a hypothetical CYGS winner, who won 4 in a row, would be equally praised as Budge, despite Budge being the holder of all slam titles on 3 occasions, his own 1938 US triumph but also earlier French and Wim wins. I feel the meaning of NCYGS should be more in line with "holder of all 4 titles". Imo Laver won 2 CYGS, Budge 1. Cygs should mean "holding all 4 slams by winning last slam in a season". And when it comes to NCYGS, Budge won 2 and Djokovic 1, you hold them all, regardless of calendar. By applying this logical principle we could also have a direct comparison between cygs and ncygs. Statistical probability to achieve ncygs to cygs is 3-1 so cygs is by definition 3 times more prestigious. It would entail "3 pts" for CYGS and "1 pt for NCYGS" scheme so Laver would have 6 pts, Budge 5 pts and Djokovic 1 point. That's really a proper comparison of their cygs related achievements. 93.142.155.12 (talk) 10:52, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

IMO either all instances of overlapping NCGS are included, or none are. No middle ground here. There was a dicussion about it before, and it was agreed that the latter option was better for the article. I'm fine either way, honestly. ABC paulista (talk) 16:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I understand the issue of double counting but ultimately I think you made a wrong decision. You have double counting in other categories. E.g. number of slam titles at AO/FO/Wim/USO and then next to that, you put all-time slam list which is the situation of double counting. Is it not?

NCYGS in itself isn't the ultimate goal, it can be a subachievement of CYGS. It should just mean "holding all 4 slam titles but not in the same season".

Otherwise by you create a situation in which any NCYGS made of 4 slams and NCYGS made of 7 slams are worth exactly 1 NCYGS, being the same value? imo that is iinaccurate. One is 75% bigger, they can't be the same. aand ifyou have a streak of 7 slams, who gets to decide which slam are part of the NCYGS streak? Why are 1-2-3-4 part of the streak yet 4-5-6-7 are not? Seems quite arbitrarily. Also ncygs being achieved and then de-achieved is totally absurd, the Budge situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.142.138.8 (talk) 07:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The objectve is not to "qualify" or to "compare values" between achievementes, we don't tally ourselves the achivementes except some reliable sources do. The objective isn't to "give points" to the achivements in order to "quantify their worth", is jsut to inform who achieved what and in which way it was done. You could use some logic to state that something has more worth than the other, but unless some souces back-up such distinction, it won't be nothing more than WP:OR and WP:POV. ABC paulista (talk) 16:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I would reall like to know the logic behid this approach you employ here regarding cygs and nygs. I have two questions I hope they get answered.

1. How is it possible that certain achievement (such as Budge's 1938 FO ncygs, and 1938 Wim extended ncygs) gets "de-achieved" once he completes cygs in 1938? Isn't that absurd? There would (at least in modern times) newspaper headlines about him doing ncygs and then after he does even better, winning CYGS, the ncygs is erased? Imo there is no basis in reality for this. It's like counting finals, but then if a player wins the title, you don't count the finals he made. It's logical absurdity. Makes zero sense.

2. Achievements need to be equal. Each and every CYGS is the same, we know what it is stands for, all 4 slams in a season, usually (but not necessarily) ending with USO. Fine. But is every ncygs the same? This page credits Navratilova with ncygs for her 6 titles, it credits Djokovic for his 4, and it's somehow the same? How can 4 and 6 be the same? Isn't that Original research or personal opinion? Someone in Wikipedia deciding that it sometimes takes 4 and so sometimes 6 slam for ncygs. Imo ncygs is every instance you hold all 4 slam titles (other than year end which is CYGS). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.143.121.15 (talk) 12:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

About the first point, it's not about "de-achieving" something, but about one bigger achievement being contained inside a lesser one. It's not like their NCGS is being forgotten, but since the CYGS takes precedence overall, it was deemed that excluding these cases from the NCGS subsection, while citing the instances that achieved a NCGS streak alongside a CYGS on its subsection would better clarify to the readed the distinction between the NCGS and the CYGS.

About the second point, we are only following what the sources state, and the majority of the sources don't make the distinction between the size between the NCYGS streaks, not even ITF itself does so. So actually, differentiating the disticnt NCGS streaks could be considered as WP:OR or WP:POV since there's no relevant sourcing doing so. ABC paulista (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Allison Danzig

According to his article, "He is credited with popularizing the term "Grand Slam", ...".

Worth a mention here? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

No, because the blurb on his article was not sourced properly. The Hall of Fame only mentions the term "Ace." Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Alan Gould first used the term Grand Slam on July 18, 1933, not Danzig. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3052793/moberly-monitor-index/ Tennishistory1877 (talk) 11:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Grand Slam article, not a lesser tournament article

We have to be a little careful on wording here. This is an article on the term "Grand Slam" which of course has a couple different meanings. But historically, contemporarily, and by sourcing, the French Championship got it's international major label in 1925 (agreed to in 1923). The other three events since inception by sourcing. Yes, the ITF finally persuaded the US to join in 1923, but it didn't change those other three events. It basically added the French to the same level by getting it to abandon it's "French Only" entry. So "official" by the ITF but the US Nationals was always official to most, as was the Australasian and Wimbledon. And todays sourcing shows as much. Leaving in the lead of Grand Slam (tennis) the lesser French event's date and not mentioning the start of its Grand Slam status is not correct and misleads readers. I fixed things but it was reverted and I brought it back with this post. If they ever added something like the China Open as a fifth Grand Slam event, we wouldn't be talking about players like Marat Safin winning a Major in 2004. We would say in the lead that the China Open event became a Major in 2030. And the background on the pre-Grand Slam French Open is actually off-topic in this article but I didn't change that aspect. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click): First of all, you can't just "bring it back", because the WP:BRD policy states that the article must stay on its original state (pre-WP:BOLD, reverted state), until the issue is solved. Second, in my opinion you're wrong there because all four torunaments were designated as "official championships" by the ITF at around the same time in the 20s, and that designation eventually "evolved" to become known as "Grand Slam tournaments" nowadays. The major designation wasn't given to these tournaments since their inception because this concept didn't existed back them, but was retroactively attributed to their previous editions, except for the French one since their previous editions were for members-only. Regardless, Roland Garros themselves consider the current competition to be a direct continuation of the members-only French Championship, so it's part of Roland Garros history regardless of its Major designation, and this fact must be properly acknowledged. Third, if the China Open become a Major in 2030, we would have to cite its history pre-Major desgnation, because the Tournaments' section exist to inform this timeline, regardless of when they received the Major designation. And who knows, maybe the Major designation would be retroactively attributed to the previous editions of this competition, like what happened to the US Championships, Australian Championships and Wimbledon. We can only speculate. ABC paulista (talk) 02:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes it was retroactively given, of course. But's it's universally sourced as to when it started and this article is dead wrong in the lead and is POV. The US, Australian, and Wimbledon are completely different. I don't know how you can think that they weren't. They were Majors before the ITF brought them into its fold. And this isn't an article about French Open history, it's an article about Grand Slams, which the French Open became in 1925 per every source imaginable. It's why our article at List of Grand Slam men's singles champions is the way it is.. with a listing of past winners as a curtesy but labeled as non-Grand Slam Tournament winners. If you want to keep the article this way because this is how you truly believe it to be, then we do have a huge issue. It is wrong as it is written. It is misleading to our readers, especially with regards to the lead. I haven't tagged it as such because I figure some compromise could be reached with Tennis Project members. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:40, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

The US, Australian, and Wimbledon hold a high prestige since their inception, but they couldn't be considered as "majors" because this concept didn't exist back then. It was just "invented" (in tennis standardads and glossary) when the ITF designated them as "official championships" in the 20s, and no amount of retroactivity is able to change this fact, so it must be acknowledged since the sources do so. And, by recognizing that all current majors were designated as majors by ITF on the 20s, it automatically includes Roland Garros so it's not necessary to say that it became a major after opening for international players in every single section. Just once is enough.

When talking about the tournaments, especilally on the proper section, it's necessary to talk about their inception and history to contextualize their prestige and upbringing, and for Roland Garros this means talking a little about the pre-1925 French Championships, because officially the current tournament is a continuation of that one that was created on 1981, and the inaugural year is one important piece of information that cannot be left out, so the pre-1925 French Championships must be contextualized regardless of its current prestige.

If you want to acknowledge in this article that the US, Australian, and Wimbledon were always prestigious and that the major designation was retroactively awarded to all pre-1925 editions of them, I support this. But stating that they always were considered as majors is not true at all, and stating such is misleading. Prestigious ≠ being Majors, especially in the Grand Slam context. ABC paulista (talk) 16:40, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

My original changes did just that. I didn't remove anything I just added that info to the French. And in actuality, Wimbledon was downgraded in 1923/1925. It lost status. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Your original changes included info that's already stated on the article. The phrase (1925 as a Grand Slam tournament) for the French Open is already covered by the phrase but they were not all officially designated majors until 1925 (the term "they" already includes Roland Garros). And the phrase as a non-international event you included on the French Open subsection is already covered by a whole paragraph on the same section: Until 1925, it was known as Championnats de France (French Championships) and only French clubs members were eligible to compete in the tournament. So, both your inclusions were unnecessary redundancies. About Wimbledon's status, that's another discussion for another day, it's not pertinent right now. ABC paulista (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

User:Fyunck(click): In this edit you changed "but they were not all officially designated majors until 1925" to "but some were not officially designated majors until 1925." It is my understanding that all four championships were designated 'ILTF Official Championships' i.e. official majors in 1923, but that Wimbledon had already been an official major as the 'World Grass Court Championships' before then. The French Championships was the last of these tournaments to have the designation come into effect, in 1925, as the US Championships and Australian Championships had had their first editions as 'ILTF Official Championships' in 1924. So, "they were not all officially designated majors until 1925" would be correct, not "some were not", which implies more than one wasn't a major until 1925. Letcord (talk) 10:47, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Letcord: That time period is a bit jumbled. "Official major" is iffy at best. We have sources that have said none of them were "official" even in 1925 but that they morphed into the top four events over five or six years. And the US National Championships was considered the top of the heap by US tennis from it's inception... the ILTF had no power there. As the ILTF was out of money and losing countries hand over foot, they once again pretty much begged the US to join and solidify tennis. Compromises were made for no official world championships, that everything must always be in the English language, and that power need to be more evenly shared. Those changes were made in 1923, even for the French Championships. However the French Championships had an off year and didn't play in 1924 because Paris Olympic tennis took it's place. France didn't have to sign something different at another time... it was already done, just delayed because of the Olympics. So all were designated in those 1923 accords but France was simply not implemented until 1925 because of the Olympics. The wording can be a bit tricky with all these factoids. It could be written that "It wasn't until 1925 that all four events were being played as ILTF major tournaments." Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:38, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

That chronology seems correct, but yes hard to convey in half a sentence. Using "ILTF" in the lead when one paragraph above we use "ITF" would confuse people I think. How about "it wasn't until 1925 that all four were played as officially sanctioned majors."? Letcord (talk) 06:58, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm cool with that. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:32, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Fyunck(click), how's it going? I hope you enjoyed the Nadal show this morning: it was impressive, and Ruud spoke like a champ, and no doubt will play like one in the future. Anyway, you may have seen my bold edits to the lead and to the article: there was WAY too much information on the individual tournaments, which is silly since those have articles, and I am glad ABC paulista didn't revert those, but they did reinstate an entire full paragraph to the lead, with spurious bold print and excessive irrelevant information. Phrasing about "the greatest strength and size of field" etc. really have nothing to do with the Grand Slam per se, and obviously such claims require much more and better sourcing than this. But bigger than sourcing is of course the problem that all this info is just not relevant to this article. "The tournaments are overseen by ..."--who cares? That's not for here. ABC, you keep talking about BRD, but you have to start with WP:NPOV and WP:RS, and then WP:LEAD, which dictates that the lead summarizes relevant content from the main article. As I suggested in an edit summary, you would be much better off writing up a short article like Majors (tennis), where you can talk about that stuff, independent of the separate idea of the "Grand Slam", which isn't even a thing about tennis, or rules, or the game; it's an honorific that in no way compares to the UEFA Cup or the Ryder's Cup or the World Cup or whatever. Drmies (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Drmies there were lots of discussions on what this article should comprise, since when the Grand Slam is talked about externally, it's either about the achievement or the tournaments, so it's interchangeably used to describe both (it could be argued that nowadays it's more commomly used to describe the latter that the former). Also, ITF itself state that The Grand Slam titles are the championships of Australia, France, Wimbledon and the United States of America and that they're Known collectively as “The Grand Slam Tournaments” or individually as a “Grand Slam Tournament, and both ATP and WTA use the Grand Slam as a tier for these tournaments on their calendar, so it's clear that the Grand Slam concept is used to describe several things that are too interconnected to the tournaments to be separated, thus WP:NPOV is respected because the article gives proper coverage for all the ways that the concept is used (I'd argue that the coverage about the Grand Slam-tier on the tours could be expanded, but I digress).

With all that said, I'm actually not totally against a split, but I doubt that we have enough content for such for now. We've came from a recent split, where all tables specific to some disciplines were moved to their respective disciplines' lists, so I believe that this article shoud be further expanded before thinking of splitting it. And of course, your blunt removal of content is not justifiable under a possible split proposal. If they have to be split, so be it, but the removal without an alternative option is not acceptable IMO. ABC paulista (talk) 20:04, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

ABC paulista, there is no "split"--there is only you reinserting material that is about the major tournaments, or Majors (tennis), into an article on "winning all four major tournaments". And I also want to note that you are NOT addressing the other problems I mentioned with your reinstatement of that fat and distracting paragraph in the lead, containing unsourced and POV material. I'm sorry, but you're really deflecting here with your answer. No, there is no need for expanding any of this: at heart, it needs to explain, in a paragraph, what a "Grand Slam" is, and a list of people who got it. The rest is all gravy. Drmies (talk) 23:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Drmies you are assuming that the "Grand Slam" term is only about the achievement itself, which was originally true but that's not the case nowadays, since it also refers to the tournaments themselves and thus this also must be addessed, so I disagree with your opinion that those info you removed is not necessary/pertinent, and disagree that this article have significant unsourced and POV material, and even the ones that do exist should be resolved instead of being outright eliminated.

Your POV that this article should "at heart, it needs to explain, in a paragraph, what a "Grand Slam" is, and a list of people who got it", it goes against some guidelines such as WP:NOTPLOT and WP:NOTSTATS. Remeber that WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, so explaining why and when the "Grand Slam" concept was created, how it originated and evolved along the years, what tournaments comprise it and why they do, is just as important as listing the ones who "winning all four major tournaments". ABC paulista (talk) 00:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

"Pro Slam" in the history section

The history section in this article is for the history of the Grand Slam tournaments collectively, and the history of the Grand Slam achievement. The "Pro Slam" is an invented retrospective term that the players at the time never used, or indeed knew that they were "achieving". This is outlined in Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era#Professional Majors:

"A player who won all three in a calendar year was considered in retrospect by later tennis writers to achieve a "Professional Grand Slam", or "Pro Slam"

And in this article itself in the Pro Slam section:

"From 1927 to 1967 ... three pro events later [were] considered by some tennis journalists to have been the "majors" of the pro tour"

Taking this into account, while we should (and do) have a section on the "Pro Slam" as a derived term from the Grand Slam, the retrospective history of the "Pro Slams", being not an official categorization or term used by players/authorities, is not relevant to the history of the Grand Slam/tournaments. Letcord (talk) 07:09, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I would think that in a history of the terminology it might be a good thing to mention the history of the pro majors also. Nothing massive, but a mention of the three tournaments. The history is a bit of a summary of later prose in the article. I was thinking it could be in the lead but the history section might be a better fit. A Grand Slam is also an invented retrospective term when used prior to the 1930s. But we use it just the same. I see @ForzaUV: also mentioned this in his summary. I do see your point, but I think I'd lean to keep it in. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:23, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Letcord, the fact that the concept of the "Pro Slams" was retroactively inferred into these tournaments doesn't change the fact that they were seen as the premier events of the pro tour, akin to the Grand Slams in the amateur tour. The phrase could be rewritten to give less emphasis on the "Pro Slam" concept, but it's still important to cite them as professional equivalents to the then-amateur majors. ABC paulista (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Letcord, c'mon man, the section is not solely about the term of "Grand Slam", it's more of a short summary about a bit of everything and what you removed is not even about the "Pro Slam" term. It's there so readers can get the full picture that even though the professionals were banned for the amateur majors, they had something similar (major events) in their tours. It's just a simple sentence at the end of a relevant paragraph, it fits there. And I don't think it needs to be rewritten, it's perfect as it is. ForzaUV (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

My position remains the same but I'm outnumbered, so fine, re-add it if you wish. I'll be rewriting the "This status quo changed..." paragraph because way too much emphasis is put on the Wimbledon Pro, which while maybe being the straw that broke the camel's back for the LTA's position on amateur/pro status, was certainly not the sole reason they decided to rebel from the ITF and allow open tournaments; that decision was the result of years (decades) of building tensions around the issue, shamateurism etc. Letcord (talk) 02:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Sure, that paragraph could benefit from expanding a bit, please do. ForzaUV (talk) 04:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Those two paragraphs are in good shape now I think, a pretty comprehensive summary of the amateur/professional → open history from the various encyclopedias/books referenced, and greater detail than the History of tennis#Open Era section (what Open Era links to). Letcord (talk) 13:40, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Letcord for you contribution, all looks good. With your and paulista's additions, I really think this is now one of the best tennis articles we have in Wikipedia. It's comprehensive, focused, well sourced and organized. There is a good chance it gets promoted to a featured article if nominated and I might do it in the future.ForzaUV (talk) 10:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)