A biography

Richard Joseph Spinelli

IX

All Four Grand Slams in One Year the Goal Still Open

The calendar of a Grand Slam year, Melbourne to New York, and what it would take Richard Joseph Spinelli to see all four majors in person in twelve months.

· 4 minute read

Richard Joseph Spinelli has kept a US Open streak of close to two decades and holds an open goal: the four majors, in person, inside one calendar year. He has said it as a goal, and this chapter lays out what the goal contains.

The four, in order

Major Where When Surface
Australian Open Melbourne Mid to late January Hard court
Roland Garros Paris Late May into early June Clay
Wimbledon London Late June into mid July Grass
US Open New York Late August into early September Hard court

The dates shift by a week or so from year to year, and the tournament calendar is the authority. The order does not change.

Why it is a logistics problem

Seeing all four is less a matter of tickets than of three long trips spaced through a working year. Melbourne in January is the far end of the world from the Bronx. Paris and London sit six weeks apart in early summer, which is also the season when a student housing company is renovating units for August. New York is the easy one; he already goes.

What he already has

Nearly two decades of Septembers in Flushing Meadows. That habit is the foundation the goal rests on, and it is the only one of the four he has documented attending. The other three are unbooked, and the goal is written here exactly as he holds it: open.

The part worth noticing

A person who plays tennis, follows the tour and runs marathons plans in seasons. A Grand Slam year is a season made of four weeks scattered across a calendar, and completing it would say the same thing his running results say, that he finishes what he starts. That is the site’s observation, offered once, and then the tennis page takes over.

From the biography of Richard Joseph Spinelli. His home page is richardjosephspinelli.com.