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 golden match occurred in the qualifiers of an ITF Men's World Tennis Tour event in Doha in 2019, where Krittin Koaykul beat Artem Bahmet.[4] [5] Bahmet was a professional sports bettor who had entered the tournament without having played tennis before; his associate bet against him and won roughly €3,000.
Main draws of top-level professional events are in boldface.
Player | Event | Round | Opponent | Final score | Date | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hazel Hotchkiss | 1910 Washington State Championships, Seattle, Washington | SF | Mrs. Huiskamp | 6–0, 6–3 | 12 Aug 1910 | [6] | |
Pauline Betz | 1943 Tri-State tournament, Cincinnati, Ohio | F | Catherine Wolf | 6–0, 6–2 | 1943 | [7] | |
Bill Scanlon | 1983 Delray Beach WCT | 1R | Marcos Hocevar | 6–2, 6–0 | 22 Feb 1983 | Recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. | |
Tine Scheuer-Larsen | 1995 Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone | RR | Mmaphala Letsatle | 6–0, 6–0 | 9 May 1995 | [8] | |
Yaroslava Shvedova | 2012 Wimbledon Championships | 3R | Sara Errani | 6–0, 6–4 | 30 Jun 2012 | Only golden set in main draw of a Major. | |
Julian Reister | 2013 US Open qualifying | Q2 | Tim Pütz | 6–7(3–7), 6–4, 6–0 | 20 Aug 2013 | Only golden set in third set.[9] [10] | |
Stefano Napolitano | 2015 Distal & ITR Group Tennis Cup qualifying | Q2 | Augusto Virgili | 6–0, 6–3 | 7 Jul 2015 | [11] [12] | |
Katarina Zavatska | 2015 Chang ITF Pro Circuit – Bangkok $25,000 qualifying | Q2 | Thanyathorn Putthaun | 6–0, 6–0 | 12 Dec 2015 | ||
He Yecong | 2016 Qingdao ATP Challenger qualifying | Q2 | Wang Honghan | 6–0, 6–0 | 7 Aug 2016 | [13] | |
Benjamin Tullou | 2016 France F17 Futures qualifying, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France | Q1 | Tomáš Fabián | 6–0, 6–0 | 3 Sep 2016 | [14] | |
Joffrey de Schepper | 2016 France F23 Futures qualifying, Rodez, France | Q1 | Tomáš Fabián | 6–0, 6–0 | 15 Oct 2016 | Amateur opponent. Fabián won one point, avoiding another golden match against him.[15] | |
Luis David Martínez | 2017 Morelos Open qualifying | Q1 | Manfred Brandes Vogt | 6–1, 6–0 | 18 Feb 2017 | [16] | |
Dan Added | 2018 France F5 Futures qualifying, Poitiers, France | Q2 | Freddy Prioton | 6–0, 6–0 | 11 Mar 2018 | Golden match.[17] | |
Krittin Koaykul | 2019 Doha M15 qualifying, Doha, Qatar | Q1 | Artem Bahmet | 6–0, 6–0 | 8 Dec 2019 | Golden match.[18] [19] | |
Jessie Aney | 2021 W60 San Bartolomé de Tirajana qualifying, Spain | Q1 | Heranne Excellent | 6–0, 6–0 | 15 Aug 2021 | In the first set.[20] | |
Anastasia Sysoeva | 2022 W25 Naples, Florida qualifying, USA | Q2 | Fenni Lian | 6–0, 6–0 | 17 May 2022 | In the second set.[21] | |
Emily Seibold | 2024 W15 Krško main draw, Slovenia | 1R | Denise Hrdinkova | 6–3, 6–0 | 16 Jul 2024 |