By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Rafael Nadal can’t win the Grand Slam this year, but he can seize another unique slice of tennis history if the wins the 2022 U.S. Open.
In the Open Era of tennis (starting in 1968), only Rod Laver (1969), Margaret Court (1970) and Steffi Graf (1988) are the only players to sweep all four major singles titles in a single calendar year and thus finish the Grand Slam season undefeated. Rafael Nadal was halfway to joining this group by winning the Australian and French titles earlier this year. His Grand Slam quest, however, was stopped in the Wimbledon semifinals when he was forced to withdraw from his match with Nick Kyrgios due to a stomach injury.
However, since a withdrawal or “walk over” does not count as a “loss” on a won-loss record for a player, technically Nadal is still undefeated in major championships in 2022. And, if he wins the 2022 U.S. Open, he would become the third player in the Open Era of tennis to finish a Grand Slam season undefeated without winning the actual Grand Slam.
In 1974, Jimmy Connors won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open but was banned from the French Open because of his participation in World TeamTennis. He finished the Grand Slam season with a 20-0 record as the Australian Open only had a 64-player draw. He won the “Grass Court Slam” that year as some have said as all three of these majors were then played on grass, with the French Open on clay being the only non-grass court major.
In 1991, Monica Seles started the year by winning the Australian Open and then the French Open. However, as Wimbledon approached, mystery surrounded Seles and as withdrew from The Championships xxxx.
She emerged from her sabbatical at the event Mahwah, New Jersey of all places, then went on to win the U.S. Open.
On June 22, 1991, as documented in my “On This Day In Tennis History” book, the Seles Wimbledon withdrawal hit the newswires.
1991 – Monica Seles, the No. 1 player in the world seeking the third leg of a possible Grand Slam, mysteriously and controversially withdraws from Wimbledon in unusual circumstances. Officials of the All England Club receive a fax from Seles’ brother Zoltan that she had a “slight accident” that caused her enough injury to withdraw. The mysterious withdrawal and lack of communication between the Seles camp and the media cause for out-of-control speculation and frenzy as to the exact reasoning of her withdrawal. Writes Bill Dwyre in the Los Angeles Times, “No top-seeded player has said “thanks, but no thanks” to Wimbledon-especially one who has won the first two legs of the Grand Slam-and that goes back 67 years to when this event started seeding players. The presumption is that, in those 67 years, many a No. 1-seeded player dragged himself or herself onto Centre Court with all sorts of aches and pains-simply because it is Wimbledon.” Later in the summer, Seles reveals that her withdrawal was due to shin splits.
She finished her 1991 Grand Slam season with a 21-0 record.
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