The red clay courts of Monte Carlo might seem a world apart from the green grass of Wimbledon, but the path between the two is a well trodden one.
Since the inaugural Monte Carlo Championships in 1896, 10 men have gone from victory on the Cote d’Azur to triumph at the All England Club.
Nevertheless, in the Open era, Bjorn Borg is the only player to have completed the Monte Carlo-Wimbledon double three times, in 1977, 1979 and 1980. Rafael Nadal, who claimed a remarkable ninth Monte Carlo title at the weekend with his victory over Gael Monfils, will emulate the Swede if he triumphs at The Championships this summer, having already done the double in 2008 and 2010.
Considering that Monte Carlo has generally marked the start of the European outdoor season on clay and The Championships are the climax to the grass-court summer, it is perhaps surprising that as many players have managed to sustain their form, on two very different surfaces, from early spring through to July.
Three players other than Borg and Nadal have achieved the Monte Carlo-Wimbledon double more than once but they all did so before the First World War: Reginald Doherty (in 1897 and 1899), his brother Laurence (in 1905 and 1906) and Anthony Wilding (in 1911, 1912 and 1913).
Five players have managed the feat just once: Henri Cochet (1929), Bill Tilden (1930), Frank Sedgman (1952), Manuel Santana (1966) and Novak Djokovic (2015).
Of those ten players, nobody was going stronger by the end of Wimbledon than Sedgman. The Australian, who worked harder on his fitness than nearly all his contemporaries, performed the remarkable feat at The Championships in 1952 of winning the gentlemen’s singles, gentlemen’s doubles and mixed doubles. He is the last player to have done so and looks certain to keep that record given that most of today’s leading male singles players never compete in the men’s doubles, let alone the mixed event. Only two players managed the feat before Sedgman: Donald Budge (in 1937 and 1938) and Bobby Riggs (in 1939).
Sedgman won 22 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed. He would surely have claimed many more had he not turned professional at the end of the 1952 season, when he was just 25 years old.
A superb athlete who covered the court at great speed and hit wonderful volleys, Sedgman had been the No.1 seed at The Championships in 1950 and 1951, only to lose to Budge Patty in the final and then to Herbie Flam in the quarter-finals.
When he was seeded No.1 for the third year in succession in 1952 Sedgman reached the final for the loss of only one set, to Belgium’s Philippe Washer in the third round.
His final opponent was the No.2 seed, Jaroslav Drobny, who had lost to him in the Monte Carlo final before earning his revenge in the French Open final. On Centre Court Drobny took the first set but Sedgman recovered to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2. The match turned early in the second set, when Drobny lost his momentum after breaking a string in his racket.
Sedgman was also a fine doubles player. In 1951 he won a doubles Grand Slam with Ken McGregor. The Australian pair were on the verge of repeating the feat the following year when they were beaten 8-6 by Mervyn Rose and Vic Seixas in the fifth set in New York. In mixed doubles Sedgman won a career Grand Slam with Doris Hart. McGregor and Sedgman beat Seixas and Eric Sturgess 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in the 1952 Wimbledon final, having been given their stiffest test in the previous round by Drobny and Patty, who eventually lost in four sets.
Sedgman and Hart, meanwhile, dropped only 10 games in their first three matches in the 1952 mixed doubles and did not drop a set en route to the final. However to lift the title they had to come from behind to beat Ricky Morea and Thelma Long 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
It was a remarkable year for Sedgman, who played in all four Grand Slam singles finals (he also won the US Open) and led Australia to victory over the United States in the Davis Cup final in Adelaide, winning both his singles rubbers and the doubles, as he had in the 1950 and 1951 finals against the same opponents.
After turning professional, Sedgman probably thought that 1952 would be his last appearance at the All England Club. However, when the sport went open in 1968 professionals were welcomed back into the fold and in 1973 the Wimbledon boycott by members of the Association of Tennis Professionals gave 45-year-old Sedgman the chance to play there again. He was beaten in straight sets in the first round by Jiri Hrebec.