In
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...
, a bagel is when the set ends with a score of 6–0. An extremely rare type of bagel, where no point is lost, is called a
golden set In tennis, a golden set is a set which is won without losing a single point. This means scoring the 24 minimum points required to win the set 6–0, without conceding any points.
In professional tennis, this has occurred twice in the main draw o ...
. Most bagel sets occur in the early rounds of tennis tournaments where the favorites play lower-ranked players, such as
lucky losers or
wild cards
''Wild Cards'' is a series of science fiction superhero shared universe anthologies, mosaic novels, and solo novels. They are written by a collection of more than forty authors (referred to as the "Wild Cards Trust") and are edited by George R. ...
.
Etymology
The term refers to the similarity between the shape of a zero and the shape of a
bagel
A bagel ( yi, בײגל, translit=beygl; pl, bajgiel; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. It is traditionally shaped by hand into a roughly hand-sized ring from yeasted wheat dough that is firs ...
. The tennis term was coined by player
Harold Solomon, and popularized by commentator
Bud Collins.
Surface disparity
Statistics of the men's singles
Grand Slam tournaments from 2000 to 2016 are as follows: at
Wimbledon (grass surface), 127 bagels were made; at
French Open
The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ve ...
(clay surface), 267; at the
US Open Tennis Championship (hard surface), 275, and at the
Australian Open
The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Ope ...
(hard surface), 238..
Björn Borg
Björn Rune Borg (; born 6 June 1956) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. Between 1974 and 1981, he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles with six at the French Open and five consecutively at W ...
(five-time Wimbledon champion and six-time French Open champion) recorded 20 6–0 sets at the French Open, and only 5 at Wimbledon.
Double bagel
Women's singles
For women in Grand Slam tournaments, a double bagel result is possible as the matches are best of three sets. In the Open Era, there has been a women's singles Grand Slam tournament match with a double bagel every year except for in 1968 and 2005. The most double bagels were in the seasons of 1974 and 1993, when eight matches had a result of 6–0, 6–0.
The following players had at least five double-bagels in Grand Slam singles events:
Between No. 1 ranked players
Men
Women
Triple bagel
* = also won the tournament.
Records
Grand Slam tournaments
Men's singles
In the history of the Grand Slam tournaments in the men's single category, the largest number of 6–0 sets won is the following:
At individual majors the players with the most 6–0 sets are:
* Australian Championship: 1. R. Federer – 17; 2.
Jack Crawford (Australia) – 16; 3. A. Agassi; N. Djokovic – 15
* French Open: 1. R. Nadal – 24; 2–3. B. Borg, G. Vilas – 20 each; 4–5.
Jaroslav Drobný (Czechoslovakia / Egypt), R. Lacoste – 17 each.
* Wimbledon: 1. R. Emerson – 15; 2–3. J. Connors, B. Tilden – to 12.
* US Championship: 1. J. Connors – 22; 2–3. I. Lendl, B. Tilden – 20 each.
Australian
Neale Fraser won at least one 6–0 set in 16 Grand Slam tournaments in a row: starting with the
1957 Australian Championship and ending with the
1960 US championship.
Women's singles
In the women's singles, the largest number of 6–0 sets won:
In individual tournaments of the Grand Slam, the largest number of 6–0 sets won is:
* Australian Championship: 1. M. Court – 25; 2. M. Sharapova – 16; 3. S. Williams – 14.
* French Open: 1. C. Evert – 26; 2. A. Sanchez – 22; 3. G. Sabatini – 21.
* Wimbledon: 1–2.
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (; 24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World ...
(France), C. Evert – to 29; 3. M. Court – 25.
* US Championship: 1. C. Evert – 43; H. Wills-Moody – 31; 3. M. Court – 27.
All tournaments
Men's singles
Trivia
*In 1910 in
Bruxelles Max Decugis
Maxime Omer Mathieu Decugis or Décugis (; 24 September 1882 – 6 September 1978) was a tennis player from France who held the French Championships record of winning the tournament eight times (a French club members only tournament before 1925 ...
beat
Tony Wilding
Anthony Frederick Wilding (31 October 1883 – 9 May 1915), also known as Tony Wilding, was a New Zealand world No. 1 tennis player and soldier who was killed in action during World War I. Considered the world's first tennis superstar, Wildin ...
3–6, 0–6, 7–5, 6–0, 6–0. Wilding was winning 6–3, 6–0, 5–0.
*In 1948
Don Budge
John Donald Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, and still the only American male — to win the Grand Slam, and to win all four Grand Slam ...
won the first match against George Hudson 6–0, 6–0, 6–0 at the
US Professional Championship, and against Jerome Adler 6–0, 6–0, 6–1 in the second round.
* In 1969, in the
second round of Wimbledon, top seed
Rod Laver
Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was the world number 1 ranked professional in some sources in 1964, in all sources from 1965 to 1969 and in some sources in 1970, spanning four years befor ...
began with the loss of the first two sets to the unseeded Indian
Premjit Lall. However, the game ended in his favor with a score of 3–6, 4–6, 6–3, 6–0, 6–0.
* There are five cases in the history of tennis (two of which occurred in the French Open in
one tournament), when the winner of the match lost 2 bagel sets:
** 1935
(U.S. Pro Tennis Championship) Bill Tilden
William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional b ...
–
Karel Koželuh
Karel Koželuh (; hu, Kozeluh Károly ; 7 March 1895 – 27 April 1950) was a Czech tennis, association football, and ice hockey player of the 1920s and 1930s. Koželuh became a European ice hockey champion in 1925 and was one of the top-ranked ...
0–6, 6–1, 6–4, 0–6, 6–4
** 1962 (Tasmanian Championship)
Rod Laver
Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was the world number 1 ranked professional in some sources in 1964, in all sources from 1965 to 1969 and in some sources in 1970, spanning four years befor ...
–
Neale Fraser 7–5, 0–6, 0–6, 6–1, 6–2
** 1969
(French Open) Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while st ...
–
Ilie Nastase 6–3, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4, 8–6
** 1969
(French Open) Dennis Ralston –
Patricio Rodríguez
Patricio (Pato) Rodríguez (20 December 1938 — 23 June 2020) was a professional tennis player from Chile. He was active from 1956 until 1979 and won 23 career singles titles. In addition he won 2 doubles titles.
Career
Rodríguez was born in S ...
6–2, 6–4, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4
** 1981
(US Open) José Luis Clerc
José Luis Clerc (born 16 August 1958) is a former professional tennis player from Argentina. He reached a career-high Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world No. 4 singles ranking on 3 August 1981, following a run of 25 consecutive ma ...
–
Mel Purcell 6–3, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4, 6–3
* In 1981, in the first round of the US championship
Jimmy Connors
James Scott Connors (born September 2, 1952) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He held the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ranking for a then-record 160 consecutive weeks from 1974 to 1977 and a career total of 268 ...
, who in the mid-70s almost married
Chris Evert
Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954), known as Chris Evert Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record ...
, beat her then-husband
John Lloyd with a score of 6–0, 6–0, 6–2.
*
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (; 24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World ...
won 9 tournaments in which she did not lose a single game in all matches.
*
Guillermo Vilas
Guillermo Vilas (; born 17 August 1952) is an Argentine former professional tennis player. Vilas was the No. 1 of the Grand Prix seasons in 1974, 1975 and 1977, and won four Grand Slam tournaments, one year-end Masters, nine Grand Prix Supe ...
won 2 matches with a score of 6–0, 6–0 in 2 consecutive seasons (
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning Syst ...
and
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...
).
*
Björn Borg
Björn Rune Borg (; born 6 June 1956) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. Between 1974 and 1981, he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles with six at the French Open and five consecutively at W ...
won 116 6–0 sets during his career
* Two women's finals in the history of the Grand Slam tournaments have ended with a double-bagel:
** 1911 (
Wimbledon)
Dorothea Lambert-Chambers –
Dora Boothby
Penelope Dora Harvey Boothby (2 August 1881 – 22 February 1970) was an English female tennis player. She was born in Finchley, Middlesex. She is best remembered for her ladies' singles title at the 1909 Wimbledon Championships.
Biography
Bo ...
6–0, 6–0
** 1988 (
French Open
The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ve ...
)
Steffi Graf
Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, ...
–
Natasha Zvereva
Natallia Marataŭna Zvierava ( be, Наталля Маратаўна Зверава; russian: Наталья Маратовна Зверева, Natalia Maratovna Zvereva; born 16 April 1971) is a former professional tennis player from Belarus. ...
6–0, 6–0
* Swiss tennis player
Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis (, sk, Martina Hingisová; 30 September 1980) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. Hingis is the first Swiss player, male or female, to win a major title and attain a world No. 1 ranking. She spent a total of 209 weeks a ...
achieved her first Olympic bagel in
singles in 1996, and the second
in pairs twenty years later.
* Spanish tennis player
Conchita Martínez
"Conchita" Martínez Bernat (born 16 April 1972) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. She was the first Spaniard to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon, doing so in 1994. Martínez also was the runner-up at the 1998 Austral ...
scored the first double bagel against a player inside the top ten in Hamburg in 1995 when she defeated
Magdalena Maleeva.
*Polish tennis player
Iga Świątek
Iga Natalia Świątek (; born 31 May 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She is currently ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Świątek is a three-time major singles champion, having won the French Open in 20 ...
scored the first double bagel in a
WTA 1000
WTA 1000 tournaments is a category of tennis tournaments on the WTA Tour, governed by the Women's Tennis Association. The old WTA Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 tournaments merged into a single highest tier and it is implemented since the r ...
final, defeating top ten Czech player, and former world number 1,
Karolína Plíšková
Karolína Hrdličková (née Plíšková; ; born 21 March 1992) is a Czech professional tennis player. She is a former world No. 1 in singles, reaching the top of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings on 17 July 2017 and holding the pos ...
in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
References
{{Tennis records and statistics
Tennis terminology
Tennis records and statistics