The rise of the career Grand Slam — and the question it leaves behind

(Getty/Robert Prange)

There's the Grand Slam (aka the pinnacle). A club with just Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962, 1969) and Steffi Graf (1988) as members.

There's the Golden Slam (which adds the Olympic title in the same calendar year). Still Graf's exclusive domain. Then there's the career Grand Slam (all four majors, at least once), achieved by 18 singles greats, but just 10 in the Open era, and most recently Novak Djokovic in 2016.

Add the surface Slam (clay, grass, hard). Our Ash Barty has one of those. And the non-calendar variety that, for a time, was dubbed the 'Serena Slam', when Williams twice held all four majors simultaneously, as Djokovic, among active players, has also done.

Which prompts the question: Can so many Slam types ever be too many?

"I would say so, yeah," the legendary Ken Rosewall told The First Serve with a chuckle, having arrived in town on Tuesday to catch up with his old pal Laver and friends. "I've never heard of half of those ones that you've mentioned!"

The First Serve Live returns on Monday February 2nd at 8pm AEDT for its 18th year on the SEN Network/App, Australia's only dedicated weekly tennis program on commercial radio running through till the end of November.

That sentiment won't concern Carlos Alcaraz or Iga Świątek as they chase the missing pieces of their major collection at Melbourne Park — Alcaraz, 22, seeking to succeed Rafael Nadal as the youngest man to complete a career Slam, and with still another chance in 2027 should he fail to break his Melbourne Park duck in front of the visiting Nadal next week.

Świątek is aiming to add major No.7 and join an exclusive list of women with all four, Maria Sharapova being the most recent, while Jannik Sinner can also fill the only gap in his Slam trophy cabinet at Roland-Garros in June.

But in Rosewall's era, when grass was the dominant surface, the concept barely existed. Thus, he jokes, he has no idea how it felt to miss out so narrowly — denied a full set by four Wimbledon final losses before retiring four Australian titles and two each at the French and US in a career spanning two decades of amateur, professional and Open tennis.

"Too far back… My memory is slipping, anyway, at 91. You know how old I am!" protests the national treasure who remains both the youngest (at 18) and oldest (at 37) man to win an Australian championship.

Still, given that career Slams absolutely are a thing in modern tennis, Rosewall hails as "a top achievement" the ability to win all four banner events across clay, grass and two different hard courts.

Pat Rafter understands the modern significance, too, even if the self-deprecating dual US Open champion and two-time Wimbledon finalist - who reached at least the semis of all four- stressed it never applied to him. This week, though, when Rafter was chatting with Roger Federer, he asked the Swiss whether his precious eighth Wimbledon or first/only French Open was better.

"We talk about how great Wimbledon is, but Roger said 'no, no, the French', because it was so important for him to have a career Slam, and obviously just ticked off all the boxes of being one of the greats," Rafter told The First Serve.

"So I can definitely see how it's really important. But yeah, it was never really in my realm, so irrelevant for me!"

Alcaraz, having previously declared that he would celebrate a full set of majors by adding a kangaroo tattoo to his existing Slam-related ink, has also stated publicly that he would rather claim a first Aus Open title than defend both of the two he currently holds - at Roland-Garros and Flushing Meadows - and the Melbourne mission is his "main goal for the year... Obviously complete the career Grand Slam is something amazing to do, be able to be the youngest that have done it before, is even better."

Federer - the 20-time major winner whose sole Roland-Garros triumph followed three runners-up plates and came after Robin Soderling helpfully broke Rafael Nadal's chokehold on the Coupe des Mousquetaires in the 2009 fourth round - quipped in the interview room when asked about how pressure can build that even asking the question was unfair.

"You know how it is. (Alcaraz) knows about it. It's like Rory (McIlroy, the golfer) going for the Masters. Those things are tough," Federer said.

"But it's true, in order to complete the career Grand Slam already now would be crazy. So let's see if he is able to do 'crazy' this week. I hope he does because for the game that would be an unbelievable, special moment."

Nor could Świątek escape the inevitable plot line, pressed last week on how the career Slam was playing into her goals and mind. "I think you guys are thinking more about it," she said, before admitting that, yes, "obviously it would be a dream come true".

Indeed, the difficulty is illustrated as much by the names of those who have fallen short as those who haven't.

For every Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Agassi/Laver/

Budge (tick), there is a Sampras/Borg/McEnroe/Becker/Edberg/Wilander (cross). For every Serena Williams/Sharapova/Graf/Court/Evert/Navratilova/King et al (tick) there is a Venus Williams/Seles/Hingis/Henin (cross) who claimed two or three but not all four.

In his acclaimed autobiography, Open, Agassi recounted that during the Seine-side celebrations for his own set of majors in Paris in 1999, John McEnroe handed him a phone at the dinner table. It was Bjorn Borg, admitting he was both joyful and envious as he congratulated Agassi for achieving something he did not.

"There weren't many guys who could even do it back then, because Pete wasn't probably gonna win on clay, which he never did, and outside that, Edberg, Becker… Wilander went close," Rafter explained. "Borg was probably capable, but never came here (more than once) because he never won the US."

Yet, like almost every comparison across eras, apples ain't necessarily apples. Until the 1970s, three of the four majors were played on grass, with the French the exception on its red dirt.

So, acknowledging how challenging the traditional calendar Grand Slam has proven to be, how does the career version rank as a measure of versatility, adaptability and, as Chris Evert has described it, being "a complete champion''?

Rosewall is among those who argue that courts have become so homogenised that even Wimbledon is not the same grass court event it was, and declares: "The game has swung around to be played like hardcourt tennis all the time."

So why has the career Slam risen in status in the past few decades, does he think? "I don't know," Rosewall said. "All the things around tennis now, the marketing and the promotion, is all well done, and maybe officials or even the press are looking for other things to make a story out of."

Craig Tyzzer, who coached Ash Barty to her three majors on different surfaces, the last at Melbourne Park before her sudden retirement in 2022, agrees that the career Slam is a relatively recent phenomenon.

"It seems to be. The whole time I was with Ash, we never talked about a career Grand Slam. It was hard enough to convince her to play the Australian Open and win!" Tyzzer said.

"We basically threw out there she hadn't won one on a hardcourt, so that was probably part of it, the goal. It's hard enough to win one, let alone win four in your career."

So perhaps Rosewall has a point. Too many Slams?

"I think it's getting out of hand," Tyzzer says, smiling. "If we just keep it down to the Grand Slam, then that'll be enough!"

The First Serve Live returns weekly each Monday Night on the SEN Radio Network & SEN App.

SEN Network: SEN 1116am Melbourne, SEN 1170am Sydney, SENQ 693am Brisbane, SEN Gold Coast 1620am, SEN SA 1629am, SEN Tassie 1629am, SEN Top End 1611am, SEN Mt Gambier 1629am, SEN Goulbourn Valley 1260am, SEN Geelong, SEN Bendigo, SEN Ballarat, SEN Gippsland, SEN Sunraysia, SEN WA on the app in Perth, SEN Spirit 621am in Bunbury, SEN Spirit 621am in Bunbury, SEN Spirit 1494am in WA's South West, SEN Peel in Mandurah, and SEN Goldfields 1611am in Kalgoorlie and across WA in the Pilbara, Mid-West and Great Southern Regions, SEN Fanatic on the SEN App, SEN App worldwide