Golden set

Tennis set won without losing a point From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 qualifiers 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 the 1910 Washington State Championships, defeating a Miss Huiskamp (first name unknown).[3] Later 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.[4] 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.[5][6] 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.

List of occurrences

Key
W  F  SF QF #R RRQ# 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.

More information Player, Event ...
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 [7]
United States Pauline Betz 1943 Tri-State tournament, Cincinnati, Ohio F United States Catherine Wolf 6–0, 6–2 1943 [8]
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 [9]
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.[10][11]
Italy Stefano Napolitano 2015 Distal & ITR Group Tennis Cup qualifying Q2 Italy Augusto Virgili 6–0, 6–3 7 Jul 2015 [12][13]
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 [14]
France Benjamin Tullou 2016 France F17 Futures qualifying, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France Q1 Czech Republic Tomáš Fabián 6–0, 6–0 3 Sep 2016 Golden match.[15]
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.[16]
Venezuela Luis David Martínez 2017 Morelos Open qualifying Q1 Mexico Manfred Brandes Vogt 6–1, 6–0 18 Feb 2017 [17]
France Dan Added 2018 France F5 Futures qualifying, Poitiers, France Q2 France Freddy Prioton 6–0, 6–0 11 Mar 2018 Golden match.[18][19]
Thailand Krittin Koaykul 2019 Doha M15 qualifying, Doha, Qatar Q1 Ukraine Artem Bahmet 6–0, 6–0 8 Dec 2019 Golden match.[19][20]
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.[21]
Anastasia Sysoeva 2022 W25 Naples, Florida qualifying, USA Q2 China Fenni Lian 6–0, 6–0 17 May 2022 In the second set.[22]
Germany Emily Seibold 2024 W15 Krško main draw, Slovenia 1R Czech Republic Denise Hrdinkova 6–3, 6–0 16 Jul 2024
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Real tennis

The sport of real tennis, as the ancestor to lawn tennis, has the same scoring system of six-game sets, making it possible to hit a golden set by winning all 24 points.

More information Player, Event ...
PlayerEvent RoundOpponentFinal scoreDateNotes
United Kingdom Claire Fahey
United Kingdom Tara Lumley
2026 US Open, Boston QF United States Kathy Minevitz
United States Julia Knowlton
6–0, 6–0 7 March 2026 In the first set [23]
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References

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