GRAND SLAM:GRAND SLAMS can be achieved in several sports, among them tennis, golf, baseball and, of course, rugby (but for fear of tempting fate we'll avoid mentioning that wins over Scotland and Wales would give Ireland their first rugby Grand Slam in 61 years).

A true tennis Grand Slam is when a player wins Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens in the same calendar year (as opposed to winning the four consecutively, but spread over two seasons). The same rule applies to golf’s Grand Slam, which is made up of the US Masters, the US Open, the British Open and the US PGA Championship.

Five players have won a tennis Grand Slam in singles – Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962, 1969), Margaret Court (1970) and Steffi Graf (1988) – but Bobby Jones is the only man to have achieved the feat in golf, albeit not the modern version of the Slam.

When, in 1930, Jones won the US and British Opens and their Amateur equivalents, an Atlanta sports writer, OB Keeler, used “Grand Slam” to describe the accomplishment, taking the term from the game of bridge where it describes the winning of all 13 tricks in one hand.

And Grand Slam made its way in to tennis in 1933 when Australian Jack Crawford needed just to win the US Open to complete his set of major tournaments that year – Fred Perry ended his hopes.

In baseball, a Grand Slam refers to a home run when there are runners on all the bases (loaded).