Who was the first player to win a Grand Slam?

Don Budge, in 1938, was the first player to capture all four majors in a single calendar year. Jack Crawford had come one title short in 1933.

What is a Career Grand Slam?

A Career Grand Slam means a player has won each of the four majors at some point, not necessarily in the same year or back to back.

Where does the term Grand Slam come from?

It comes from contract bridge, where it means winning every trick. Golf writers applied it to Bobby Jones in 1930, and tennis columnists picked it up during Jack Crawford's 1933 run.

Which Grand Slam tournament is the oldest?

Wimbledon, first held in 1877. The US event began in 1881, the French in 1891 and the Australian in 1905.

Which major is played on clay?

The French Open, held at Stade Roland-Garros in Paris since 1928, is the only Grand Slam tournament played on red clay.

What Is a Grand Slam in Tennis? The Four Majors Explained

What Is a Grand Slam in Tennis?

In tennis, a grand slam is the feat of taking all four major titles in one discipline inside a single calendar year. The same words also name the tournaments involved — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open — which stand at the top of the professional game.

Related terms describe close calls and career-long feats. Four straight majors that cross from one calendar year into another make up a non-calendar-year grand slam, while collecting all four at any stage of a playing career is a career grand slam. In doubles, the sweep can be done by one team or by an individual who switches partners along the way.

These four events outrank everything else on the schedule. They pay the most prize money, offer the most ranking points and pull in the largest fields and audiences, with the men playing best-of-five sets and the women best of three. The ATP and WTA tours do not run the majors, but both hand out ranking points based on results in them.

The Four Majors: Dates and Surfaces

The tennis season starts with the Australian Open in late January, with play stretching into early February. The French Open follows from late May into early June, Wimbledon runs from late June into early July, and the US Open finishes the series from late August into early September. Each event spans about two weeks.

The surfaces change from stop to stop. The Australian and US tournaments use hard courts, the French is the only major on clay, and Wimbledon is the only one played on grass.

Wimbledon came first, founded in 1877, followed by the US event in 1881, the French in 1891 and the Australian in 1905. The French championship earned major status in 1925, and 1923 was the year the four were together given the Official Championships designation. The draws are massive: the Australian, French and Wimbledon fields each bring together 256 singles players plus 128 doubles teams and 32 mixed doubles teams.

Australian Open: The Season's First Major

Melbourne stages the opening major each year in late January and early February. Play began in November 1905 on grass at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground, and the event carried the name Australasian Championships through 1927 and the Australian Championships until the Open Era arrived in 1969. After a stay at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club from 1972 to 1987, it moved in 1988 to the hard courts of Melbourne Park, which uses GreenSet surfaces. Tennis Australia operates the tournament.

A distant stop that leading players once skipped has grown into the best-attended major, drawing more than 1,020,000 fans in 2024. Nicknamed the Happy Slam and billed as the Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific, it was the first major to play indoors, put retractable roofs over its main courts, hold men's singles finals at night and replace line judges with the Hawk-Eye Live electronic system. The 2025 prize pool was A$96,500,000.

French Open: The Clay Major in Paris

The second major of the year is held at Stade Roland-Garros in Paris from late May into early June. Its roots trace to an 1891 championship restricted to members of French clubs and played on sand in Puteaux. The event opened to all amateurs and joined the major ranks in 1925, and it has been played on the clay of its present stadium since 1928, a venue honoring the French aviation pioneer Roland Garros. The Fédération française de tennis runs it.

Roland Garros is the only major contested on red clay and is generally seen as the toughest physical test in tennis. The 2025 purse came to €56,352,000, and the 2018 edition set an attendance record of 480,575 spectators.

Wimbledon: Grass and Tradition in London

The third major of the year takes place from late June into early July at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, the same club that first held the event in 1877. The club shifted to its present Church Road site in 1922 to fit more spectators. As the oldest tournament in the sport, it is widely regarded as the most prestigious of them all.

Custom runs deep at Wimbledon. It is the only major still played on grass, the surface where lawn tennis began in the 1800s, players must wear all-white kit, competitors are styled Gentlemen and Ladies, and they bow or curtsy toward the Royal Box when the monarch or the Prince of Wales is present. The BBC has televised the championships in the United Kingdom since 1937.

A management committee of 19 people — 12 from the club and seven named by the Lawn Tennis Association — oversees the event. The 2025 prize fund was £53,500,000, attendance reached 500,397 in 2019, and deals with Slazenger since 1902 and Robinsons since 1935 rank among the longest sponsorships in sports.

US Open: The Final Major of the Year

The US Open closes the major calendar each year on hard courts from late August into early September. The tournament was first played in August 1881 on grass at the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island. After moving between venues in its early decades, it settled in 1923 at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City.

Forest Hills also supplied the setting for the story that gave tennis its grand slam vocabulary. In 1933, Jack Crawford arrived at the U.S. Championships there with the Australian, French and Wimbledon titles already secured that year.

Where the Grand Slam Term Comes From

Grand slam began as a contract bridge expression for winning every possible trick. Golf picked it up in 1930, when Bobby Jones won the four major tournaments of his era and the result was described with the same label.

Tennis writers adopted the phrase in 1933 while following Jack Crawford's run at the four titles. Alan J. Gould of The Reading Eagle used it, and John Kieran of The New York Times wrote that a Crawford win at Forest Hills would amount to a grand slam on the courts. Crawford fell short, and Don Budge became the first player to win all four majors in one calendar year when he did it in 1938.

The four-title sweep has not been available in every season. World War II interrupted the Australian, French and Wimbledon championships from 1940 to 1945, the Australian ran no mixed doubles from 1970 to 1985 and no event at all in 1986, and Wimbledon was called off in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.