The U.S. Will Never Dominate Men’s Tennis Again. Neither Will Any Other Country

Will American tennis ever produce another men’s Grand Slam winner? How about just somebody who’s regularly around the second week? These are questions ever on the minds of sports columnists—two of them mused on these topics just this past Tuesday, in the Times —as well as television commentators, coaches, and fans, including those sitting around me at the U.S. Open these past few days. Many lovers of the game are globalists—Fed! Rafa! Nole!—but a homegrown guy to root for in big matches is a special kind of fun, particularly on a late-summer night in Flushing Meadows, Queens. (Thank God for Serena.) Alas, no American man has won it all at the Open since Andy Roddick in 2003. Since 2007, only three American men—Roddick, Mardy Fish, and John Isner—have even reached the quarter-finals.