The 5 women to win consecutive Australian and French Open titles – ft. Serena Williams and Steffi Graf
Serena Williams and Monica Seles both won the Australian and French Open titles in the same season.
It is one of the toughest challenges in tennis.
Several players have been able to win the Australian and French Open titles throughout their careers, but only five women in the Open Era have won the two tournaments in the same year.
As Aryna Sabalenka looks to achieve the historic double, we look at the five all-time greats the world No 2 will hope to emulate this fortnight.
2015 was one of the best seasons of Williams’ career, winning three of the four majors in a dominant period for the all-time great.
After winning the US Open in 2014, she started off her 2015 season in some style by storming to a sixth Australian Open title, beating Maria Sharapova in straight sets in the final.
Battling through illness, the French Open was more of a struggle for her, being pushed to three sets on five occasions.
But Williams battled from a break down in the deciding set against Lucie Safarova in the final, sweeping the first two majors of the season.
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After struggles on and off the court, few would have begrudged Capriati’s stunning 2001 success, as she claimed two of her three major victories in Melbourne and Paris that year.
Following a resurgent 2000 season, Capriati entered the Australian Open as the 12th seed and beat Monica Seles and Lindsay Davenport to reach the final, where she downed Martina Hingis in straight sets.
Later on that season, the American was fourth seed at Roland Garros and again impressed on her way to the final, beating Williams and Hingis to set up a clash against Kim Clijsters.
And, in an epic clash, Capriati prevailed 12-10 in the final set to win back-to-back majors.
Monica Seles – 1991, 1992
The dominant player of the early 1990s, Seles won back-to-back Australian and French Open titles in two consecutive seasons.
Seles won her first Australian Open title in 1991, beating Jana Novotna in the final, before fending off Arantxa Sanchez Vicario to successfully defend her French Open crown.
And she then completed the same double the following season, defeating Mary Joe Fernandez in Melbourne before edging a blockbuster clash against great rival Steffi Graf in Paris.
She would have been fancied to achieve the same double in 1993 had she not been infamously stabbed on court, winning the Australian Open for a third straight year before the incident.
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Steffi Graf – 1988
In arguably the most iconic season in tennis history, Graf made history by winning all four majors and Olympic gold in 1988.
Top seed Down Under, the German kickstarted her epic season with a maiden Australian Open crown, not dropping a set on her way to victory – beating fellow legend Chris Evert in the final.
That was followed by an even more dominant run to a successful Roland Garros title defence, where she crushed Natasha Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in a 32-minute final for the third major of her career.
In total, she dropped just 20 games at the French Open, and only 29 in Melbourne.
Margaret Court – 1969, 1970, 1973
A true great of the sport, Court started the Open Era by achieving the impressive double a staggering three times in five years.
In the first full year of the professional game, the Australian won her home Slam by beating Billie Jean King in the final, before battling past Ann Jones at Roland Garros.
And she matched that feat the following year on her way to a Calendar Slam, beating compatriot Kerry Melville Down Under before easing past Helga Niessen in Paris.
Coming back to the sport as a mother in 1973, she achieved the double a third time, seeing off Evonne Goolagong at the Australian Open and Chris Evert at the French Open.
Astonishingly, she also achieved the feat twice before the Open Era, in 1962 and 1964.
