how do you slam a problem like maria

Here's a thought that occurred to me while watching Maria Sharapova win the French Open a couple of weeks ago. No, it wasn't that, you filthy pervert. Well, all right, it was that, but there was another thing as well.

Sharapova's win gave her a full set of all the Grand Slam singles titles; she is the seventeenth person overall and the tenth woman to achieve this feat. What makes Sharapova's version of the feat interesting is that she has done it in the most efficient way possible, i.e. by winning each tournament precisely once - Wimbledon in 2004, the US Open in 2006, the Australian Open in 2008 and now the French Open in 2012. It occurred to me to wonder whether anyone else had achieved the feat that way, without wasting time and effort mucking about winning lots of multiples of individual tournaments on the way and pointless nonsense like that.

So here's a couple of lists for you - firstly the women:

Player	Tournament achieved	Year	Wins to date
Maureen Connolly	French Open	1953	5
Doris Hart	US Open	1954	5
Shirley Fry Irvin	Australian Open	1957	4
Margaret Court	Wimbledon	1963	7
Billie Jean King	French Open	1972	7
Chris Evert	Australian Open	1982	14
Martina Navratilova	US Open	1983	7
Steffi Graf	US Open	1988	5
Serena Williams	Australian Open	2003	5
Maria Sharapova	French Open	2012	4

Then the men:

Player	Tournament achieved	Year	Wins to date
Fred Perry	French Open	1935	5
Don Budge	French Open	1938	4
Rod Laver	US Open	1962	6
Roy Emerson	Wimbledon	1964	6
Andre Agassi	French Open	1999	4
Roger Federer	French Open	2009	14
Rafael Nadal	US Open	2010	9

Since golf has a very similar major tournament structure, one might ask the same question there as well. Note that it's almost impossible to construct a women's list here as the tournaments which qualify as majors have fluctuated so much over the years, so we'll have to make do with just the men here.

Player	Tournament achieved	Year	Wins to date
Gene Sarazen	Masters	1935	7
Ben Hogan	Open	1953	9
Gary Player	US Open	1965	4
Jack Nicklaus	Open	1966	6
Tiger Woods	Open	2000	4

People whose feat matches Sharapova's are in bold in the tables - needless to say they also have a "4" in the "Wins" column. In case it's still not clear they are:

• Shirley Fry Irvin (tennis)
• Don Budge (tennis)
• Andre Agassi (tennis)
• Gary Player (golf)
• Tiger Woods (golf)

You may have that factoid for free for your next dinner party. No, you're welcome.