Shortest Grand Slam tennis final (open era)

Steffi Graf (Germany) retained her French Open singles title in just 32 minutes of playing time on 4 June 1988, serving up a “double bagel” (6-0, 6-0) to Natalya “Natasha” Zvereva (Soviet Union, now Belarus) at Stade Roland Garros. Graf, 18, who dropped just 20 games all tournament (nine of them in her semi-final defeat of Gabriela Sabatini), would go on to complete an unprecedented “Golden Grand Slam” in 1988 – winning all four majors and Olympic gold (in Seoul, South Korea) in the same year.

The 17-minute first set was interrupted for an hour by rain, but there was to be no stopping Graf after the resumption, returning to the scene of her maiden Grand Slam singles triumph 12 months earlier. The German ace would go on to win a total of 22 singles majors (and one in doubles) during her career, including six in Paris (1987-88, 1993, 1995-96 and 1999). Zvereva, 17, appearing in her first (and only) Grand Slam singles final, won just 13 points during the match. She would go on to make her name in doubles, winning 18 major titles, the first of which would come at the French Open in 1989 (playing with Larisa Savchenko against Graf and Sabatini). Graf-Zvereva was the first “double bagel” in a major singles final for 77 years (dating back to Dorothea Lambert Chambers’ defeat of Penelope “Dora” Boothby 6-0, 6-0 at Wimbledon in 1911). It would also remain the most one-sided Grand Slam singles final of the open era for another 37 years, until Iga Świątek whitewashed Amanda Anisimova in 57 minutes at Wimbledon on 12 July 2025.