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 of top-level events. It has also happened a number of times in the pre-tournament qualifier of the lowest-level events. Bill Scanlon had a golden second set in his win over Marcos Hocevar at the 1983 Delray Beach WCT event. Yaroslava Shvedova had a golden first set in her win over Sara Errani at the 2012 Wimbledon Championships.[1] Steffi Graf came close to achieving the feat in the finals of the 1989 Virginia Slims of Washington tournament, winning the first five games to love against Zina Garrison, before winning the match 6–1, 7–5.[2] At the 2023 Western & Southern Open, Taylor Fritz won the first five games to love in his round of sixteen match before his opponent, Dusan Lajovic, retired.

A golden match is when a player does not lose a single point in the entire match. There are five documented cases of this at low-level events. Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman did so in a 1910 amateur match in the state of Washington. Then it happened twice in France in the qualifiers of lowest-level professional events, two of them in the span of two months, both against the same 55-year-old man, Tomas Fabian.[3] A more recent televised Golden Match involved Krittin Koaykul beating Artem Bahmet during a qualifying match at ITF World Tennis Tour event in Doha, and scoring the minimum 48 points to win.[4]

List of occurrences
Key
W  F  SF QF #R RR Q# DNQ A NH
(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did not qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) strike rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss record.

Main draws of top-level professional events are in boldface.

PlayerEvent RoundOpponentFinal scoreDateNotes
United States Hazel Hotchkiss 1910 Washington State Championships, Seattle, Washington SF United States Mrs. Huiskamp (first name unknown) 6–0, 6–3 12 Aug 1910 [5]
United States Pauline Betz 1943 Tri-State tournament, Cincinnati, Ohio F United States Catherine Wolf 6–0, 6–2 1943 [6]
United States Bill Scanlon 1983 Delray Beach WCT 1R Brazil Marcos Hocevar 6–2, 6–0 22 Feb 1983 Recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Denmark Tine Scheuer-Larsen 1995 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone RR Botswana Mmaphala Letsatle 6–0, 6–0 9 May 1995 [7]
Kazakhstan Yaroslava Shvedova 2012 Wimbledon Championships 3R Italy Sara Errani 6–0, 6–4 30 Jun 2012 Only golden set in main draw of a Major.[1]
Germany Julian Reister 2013 US Open qualifying Q2 Germany Tim Pütz 6–7(3–7), 6–4, 6–0 20 Aug 2013 Only golden set in third set.[8][9]
Italy Stefano Napolitano 2015 Distal & ITR Group Tennis Cup qualifying Q2 Italy Augusto Virgili 6–0, 6–3 7 Jul 2015 [10][11]
Ukraine Katarina Zavatska 2015 Chang ITF Pro Circuit – Bangkok $25,000 qualifying Q2 Thailand Thanyathorn Putthaun 6–0, 6–0 12 Dec 2015
China He Yecong 2016 Qingdao ATP Challenger qualifying Q2 China Wang Honghan 6–0, 6–0 7 Aug 2016 [12]
France Benjamin Tullou 2016 France F17 Futures qualifying, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France Q1 Czech Republic Tomáš Fabián 6–0, 6–0 3 Sep 2016 [13]
France Joffrey de Schepper 2016 France F23 Futures qualifying, Rodez, France Q1 Czech Republic Tomáš Fabián 6–0, 6–0 15 Oct 2016 Amateur opponent. Fabián won one point, avoiding another golden match against him.[14]
Venezuela Luis David Martínez 2017 Morelos Open qualifying Q1 Mexico Manfred Brandes Vogt 6–1, 6–0 18 Feb 2017 [15]
France Dan Added 2018 France F5 Futures qualifying, Poitiers, France Q2 France Freddy Prioton 6–0, 6–0 11 Mar 2018 Golden match.[16][17]
Thailand Krittin Koaykul 2019 Doha M15 qualifying, Doha, Qatar Q1 Ukraine Artem Bahmet 6–0, 6–0 8 Dec 2019 Golden match.[17][18]
United States Jessie Aney 2021 W60 San Bartolomé de Tirajana qualifying, Spain Q1 France Heranne Excellent 6–0, 6–0 15 Aug 2021 In the first set.[19]
Russia Anastasia Sysoeva 2022 W25 Naples, Florida qualifying, USA Q2 China Fenni Lian 6–0, 6–0 17 May 2022 In the second set.[20]

References
  1. "Yaroslava Shvedova joins the exclusive 'golden set'". BBC Sport Sport.
  2. "Graf Trounces Garrison". The New York Times. 20 February 1989.
  3. "Joffrey De Schepper beat 55-year-old Tomas Fabian 6–0 6–0 in one of the fastest matches in tennis history!". 17 October 2016.
  4. Worst Tennis televised performance of all time. (0–6, 0–6 golden match lost 48/48), retrieved 2022-11-01
  5. "Miss Hotchkiss and Divine Star". The Spokesman-Review. 1910-08-13. p. 11.
  6. S. Smith, Phillip (2010). From Club Court to Center Court (PDF) (2010 ed.). p. 22. ISBN 978-0-9712445-8-0.
  7. Politiken, 10 May 1995, 1st Section, p.10
  8. "Tennis: Julian Reister réalise un historique "golden set"". 23 August 2013.
  9. "Match Stats". Archived from the original on 2013-09-01.
  10. "Stefano Napolitano's Golden Set (Italian)".
  11. Josh Meiseles (2015-07-09). "Thirty-Three Points Won In A Row? It Happened". Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  12. tennisnet (8 August 2016). "Ein perfekter Satz – 2 Chinesen sorgen für historisches Ereignis".
  13. tennisnet (3 September 2016). "Weltpremiere! Franzose Benjamin Tullou spielt "Golden Match"".
  14. "Rodez (ITF) – Joffrey de Schepper pas loin du golden match". www.tennisactu.tv.
  15. "ATP Challenger Tour on Twitter".
  16. "Golden match alert! Dan Added writes history against Freddy Prioton". 12 March 2018.
  17. https://www.itftennis.com/en/tournament/france-f5-futures/fra/2018/m-fu-fra-05a-2018/draws-and-results/
  18. "El peor tenista del mundo: El despropósito de Artem Bahmet en Catar". 9 December 2019.
  19. "W60 San Bartolome de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) 2021 | ITF".
  20. "W25 Naples, FL 2022 Tennis Tournament | ITF".
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