There are currently 14 men in the top 100, the most since 1996, but none in the top 20. While the United States may not have any truly elite players right now, it does have youth.
Reilly Opelka of the USA after dropping a factor towards Lloyd Harris in his healthy on Monday.Credit...Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, thru ReutersIt took some time, but after the American Reilly Opelka and his massive serve have been eliminated inside the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday via Lloyd Harris of South Africa, I determined to go searching. I had to weave thru the huge crowds that have thankfully again been part of the revel in at this yr’s event. I needed to paintings my manner up and down the concourse, analyzing the banners that remember, yr by year, the past Open champions — most of whom seemed to be named Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer — before arriving at my destination. There, close to a espresso stand, dangling from the same post, had been banners offering the remaining American guys to win the singles identify at Flushing Meadows: Pete Sampras in 2002 and Andy Roddick in 2003. It has been nearly 20 years now, the longest gap within the records of this Grand Slam match among American men’s champions. I protected both Sampras’s and Roddick’s victories, and there has been no suspecting the length of the drought to return. New American guys’s stars had continually emerged, now and again with a mild postpone however never this sort of postpone. There changed into challenge about the future whilst John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were given older inside the Nineteen Eighties, but then alongside came one of the finest generations from any country: Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang, with pleasant players like Todd Martin and MaliVai Washington playing secondary roles. There turned into huge challenge while those gamers aged out within the early 2000s, however Roddick nonetheless managed to reach No. 1 earlier than being left knee-deep with the aid of the genius of Federer and the inexorable upward push of Nadal and Djokovic. Roddick did his first-rate, absolute confidence, which become frequently first-rate, reaching three Wimbledon finals and another U.S. Open final earlier than retiring in 2012. But although Serena Williams, a winner of 23 most important singles titles, has given American tennis fanatics masses to celebrate on account that then, no American man has reached a Grand Slam singles very last in over a decade because the Europeans have positioned a chokehold on guys’s tennis. “We were given a bit bit spoiled,” stated Brad Stine, the veteran American coach who mentored Courier and now works with the younger American Tommy Paul. There has been no room on this upscale neighborhood. The high real estate has been occupied by using the Big Three, which for a time might have been considered the Big Five with Andy Murray and Federer’s Swiss compatriot Stan Wawrinka every triumphing three predominant titles. Now a miles more youthful group has emerged that you could call the Next Four: Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Alexander Zverev of Germany. If you want, toss inside the nonetheless-reigning U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem of Austria and Andrey Rublev of Russia, a top-10 player. U.S. Open ›Latest UpdatesUpdatedAug. 31, 2021, 10:07 p.M. ETNovak Djokovic holds off Holger Rune in his first U.S. Open healthy.Maxime Cressy, an American qualifier, provides the largest disillusioned so far.The enthusiasts were out once more for day on the U.S. Open.They, just like the stars they're succeeding, are all Europeans. Tennis is more significant to the sports activities tradition in Europe, attracting greater hobby and presumably a more percent of pinnacle-satisfactory athletes. There are greater professional tournaments, each on the minor league and fundamental league degree, in Europe. But this season and this U.S. Open have offered up a few proof for better days ahead for the American men. There are 14 within the pinnacle one hundred in the interim, the maximum because 1996. There were 13 within the 2nd round on the Open, the maximum considering that 1994 whilst Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang have been in complete float. But unlike those halcyon days, none of the brand new-age Americans are currently ranked within the top 20. There is intensity but, for now, no absolutely elite gamers. What bodes nicely is that there's teenagers. All 3 of the American guys to reach the fourth round right here have been below 25: Opelka, 24; Frances Tiafoe, 23; and Jenson Brooksby, 20. “In the top 100, we’ve were given a large group of men there; we just don’t have the world beaters,” Opelka stated after his 6-7 (6), 6-four, 6-1, 6-3 loss to Harris. “I don’t suppose we will have a Sampras-Agassi technology of simply dominance like that again. It’s rare for any us of a.” Brooksby, the ultimate American singles participant left inside the tournament, simply gave the look of a worldbeater for a fixed and a 1/2 on Monday night time. In his first appearance in Arthur Ashe Stadium, he performed with intelligence and resilience to take a 6-1 lead on world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Brooksby then got again on serve within the 2nd set after breaking Djokovic in an 8-deuce recreation that felt more like chess than tennis. But Djokovic, chasing the Grand Slam, has been gambling great-of-five set tennis for nearly twenty years. Brooksby is simply starting out and could not preserve pace, dropping 1-6, 6-three, 6-2, 6-2. “I told him at the net he has a brilliant future beforehand of him,” Djokovic stated. Opelka, Tiafoe and Brooksby aren't by myself. Sebastian Korda is 21 and Brandon Nakashima is 20, and both also have had achievement this season with Korda attaining the quarterfinals of the Miami Open after beating 3 seeded gamers after which winning his first excursion name in Parma, Italy. Nakashima made the singles finals in Atlanta and Los Cabos, Mexico, and dissatisfied John Isner, the most a success American man of the last decade, inside the first spherical of this year’s U.S. Open. All this might now not had been worth celebrating 25 years in the past, but it counts as proper news now. “I do suppose we’re shifting in the right direction,” said Stine, who has coached privately and with america Tennis Association. “Ideally for U.S. Tennis we want to have as many guys as we in all likelihood can within the top 250, which means we’re flooding the qualifying rounds of the Slams. And then from there, we want as many within the top one hundred as we can get. It’s a numbers recreation, in the long run. You ought to ask, might you rather have 14 in the top 100 with none in the top 20? Or most effective six within the pinnacle 100 and all within the top 20? I assume you’d glaringly go together with the six, but I do suppose we’re making progress.” They are a various group with varied sport patterns. Consider simply the 3 American guys to attain the spherical of sixteen. Opelka, who have to ruin into the top 20 on Monday after the Open, is sort of seven ft tall with a huge-bang game which can make him a nightmare to stand. Tiafoe, who misplaced in four units to Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada on Sunday night, is a compact strength server from College Park, Md., with quickness and dynamic groundstrokes who has had a resurgent season under his new instruct Wayne Ferreira. Brooksby, the most up-to-date arrival at this degree, is a northern Californian who made top use of his wild card into the Open. “I suppose Brooksby is our fine,” stated Opelka, who picked Brooksby and Korda because the maximum possibly Americans to win a Grand Slam title down the road. Brooksby has an unconventional sport primarily based on consistency, amazing defense and abrupt rhythm shifts instead of the energy baseline style that predominates at the guys’s excursion. “Is his swing stunning? No. But is it repeatable? Absolutely, and that’s the most critical aspect,” stated Stine, who has recognized Brooksby since he turned into eleven. “The touch factor is easy, and he makes a million balls. He performs the sport truely at the handiest shape there is. I’m going to overlook fewer balls than you're. I’m going to run and get to all the balls you hit, and I’m going to make you hit one more ball. And it’s been extraordinarily effective and extremely aggravating to his combatants.” The subsequent challenge for the younger Americans is beating sufficient combatants to start going deep, truly deep, in the tournaments that matter maximum.
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