What is an Anti-grand-slam?

If you enter a tournament and don't win, it's usually some consolation to lose to someone who does very well (say, the eventual winner). So then it must be pretty bad if you lose to someone who loses in the next round. Now what if you get beat in the first round by someone who gets beat in the second round by someone who gets beat in the third round, etc? Then that must be the worst possible outcome when entering a tournament. It would be like winning the "anti-tournament."

So I have compiled the list of anti-grand-slam winners in the open era, so the world can begin to appreciate these great achievements. Hopefully information for the women's tournaments will be coming soon.

Men's Anti-grand-slam Winners (open era):

Notes:

• 1977 had two Australian Opens, one in January and one in December.
• 1986 had no Australian Open, as they changed it back from December to January

Footnotes:

• [5] or [6]: The tournament only had 5/6 rounds, not the usual 7
• [bye]: This player had a first-round bye
• [#N]: This player was seeded #N
• [WC]: This player was a wild-card
• [LL]: This player was a lucky-loser
• [Q]: This player was a qualifier. Technically the sequence of match losses could be extended back to who this player beat in the qualifying tournament, but I didn't do it.

So without further ado, here are the men's anti-grand-slam winners in the open era:

	Australian	French	Wimbledon	US Open
1968		Joseph Mateo	Lance Lumsden	Billy R Knight
1969	Bob Giltinan [6]	Ivan Molina	Bob Giltinan	David Lloyd
1970	Anthony Hammond [6]	Jean-Francois Caujolle	Szabolcz Baranyi	Onny Parun [bye]
1971	Alvin Gardiner [6]	Bob Giltinan	Pat Cramer	D Richard Russell
1972	Owen Davidson [6,bye]	Ion Tiriac	Jim Osborne	Pat Dupre
1973	Jun Kuki [6]	Piero Toci	Neale Fraser	Rayno Seegers
1974	Robert Casey [6]	Michel Leciercq	Peter Szoke	Jun Kamiwazumi
1975	John James [5]	Patricio Cornejo	John Andrews	Howard Schoenfield
1976	Joao Soares [6]	Chris Kachel	Jay Royappa [Q]	Ove Nils Bengtson
1977	Allan Stone [6] Eric Friedler [6]	Chris Kachel	Make Machette	Ricardo Cano
1978	Richard Lewis [6]	Jiri Granat	John McEnroe [#11]	George Amaya
1979	George Hardie [6]	Bernard Fritz	John Yuill [LL]	Adriano Panatta [#15]
1980	Jay Lapidus [Q]	Bernard Boileau	Byron Bertram	George Hardie
1981	Chris Johnstone	Mark Edmondson	Phil Dent	Bill Cowan
1982	Jonathan Smith	Tim Mayotte	Rick Fagel	Eddie Edwards
1983	Henrik Sundstrom [#9,bye]	Jose Luis Damiani	Sashi Menon	Chip Hooper
1984	Russell Simpson	Matt Doyle	Tom Cain [Q]	Thierry Tulasne
1985	Mark Wooldridge	Shlomo Glickstein	Jimmy Arias	Robert Seguso [WC]
1986		Victor Pecci, Sr [WC]	Jeremy Bates	Ulf Stenlund
1987	John Fitzgerald [bye]	Peter Lundgren	Gary Donnelly	Bruno Oresar
1988	Larry Scott	Sergio Casal	Mark Petchey [WC]	Jean-Philippe Fleurian
1989	Michael Kures	Tore Meinecke	Patrick Baur [Q]	Paul Chamberlin
1990	Kelly Evernden	Guillaume Raoux [WC]	Danny Sapsford [WC]	Paul Chamberlin
1991	Peter Doohan [WC]	Jeff Tarango	Jordi Arrese	Francisco Montana [Q]
1992	Karsten Braasch	Javier Sanchez	Richard Fromberg	Felipe Rivera [Q]
1993	Grant Doyle [WC]	Nicolas Escude [WC]	Brian Devening [Q]	Henri Leconte
1994	John Sullivan [Q]	Grant Stafford	Richard Krajicek	Greg Rusedski
1995	Goran Ivanisevic [#4]	Hernan Gumy [Q]	Vincent Spadea	Greg Rusedski
1996	Jonathan Stark	Nicolas Lapentti	Michael Joyce	Marcelo Filippini
1997	Juan Albert Viloca	Emilio Benfele Alvarez	Nicolas Lapentti	Patrick McEnroe
1998	Marcelo Filippini	Javier Sanchez	Andrei Pavel	John van Lottum
1999	Joseph Sirianni [WC]	Karol Kucera [#11]	Cecil Mamitt	Andrew Ilie
2000	Cedric Pioline [#13]	Galo Blanco	Michael Russell [Q]	Bob Bryan [WC]
2001	David Sanchez	Martin Damm	Franco Squillari [#28]	Nikolay Davydenko
2002	Flavio Saretta	Max Mirnyi [#26]	Juan Ignacio Chela [#19]	Augustin Calleri
2003	Hicham Arazi	Justin Gimelstob	Dick Norman [Q]	Joachim Johansson [Q]
2004	Rainer Schuttler [#6]	Joachim Johansson	John van Lottum	Marat Safin [#13]
2005	Felix Mantilla Botella	Fabrice Santoro	Vincent Spadea	Noam Okun [Q]
2006	Fernando Vicente	Olivier Marach	Greg Rusedski	Jeff Morrison
2007	Luis Horna	Fernando Gonzalez	Juan Monaco	Fernando Gonzalez
2008	Donald Young	Viktor Troicki	Igor Kunitsyn [WC]	Brendan Evans [WC]
2009	Kristof Vliegen	Yen-Hsun Lu	Nicolas Lapentti	Dmitry Tursunov
2010	Robin Haase	Rainer Schuttler	Ramon Delgado [LL]	Illya Marchenko
2011	Denis Gremelmayr [Q]	Daniel Brands	Lukas Lacko [Q]

Record Holders:

Here are some notable achievements in the history of anti-grand-slams:

Most career anti-grand-slams:

• 3: Greg Rusedski, Bob Giltinan, Nicolas Lapentti
• 2: George Hardie, John van Lottum, Chris Kachel, Vincent Spadea, Joachim Johansson, Fernando Gonzalez, Javier Sanchez, Paul Chamberlin, Marcelo Filippini, Rainer Schuttler

Most anti-grand-slams in one year:

• 2: Bob Giltinan (1969), Fernando Gonzalez (2007)

Successful defense of an anti-grand-slam:

• Chris Kachel (1976-77 French)
• Paul Chamberlin (1989-90 US Open)
• Greg Rusedski (1994-95 US Open)

Highest seed to win anti-grand-slam:

• 4th seed: Goran Ivanisevic (1995 Australian)