Finding Two Smallest Numbers in an Array

Finding smallest element in an array is fairly straight-forward: just traverse the array, keeping the current minimum value; every time when an element is encountered that has value smaller than current minimum, simply update the current minimum and continue further.

The process of selecting two values rather than one goes by iterating through the rest of the array (skipping the leading two values) and trying to insert each value into the two entries that are kept aside. In the example above, initial pair was (4, 9). Once value 5 has been encountered, value 9 drops out. Same thing happens to value 5 as soon as value 3 has been reached. And so the process goes on, until all values in the array have been exhausted leaving (1, 2) as the final pair of smallest values from the array.

This raises the question whether there is a better way to find the runner-up? And there is one: it is solution to the problem known for ages, and it has to do with tennis tournaments

Tournament held among numbers promotes value 1 as the smallest number