With Roddick gone there are no champion tennis players from US

01 September, 2012

Andy Roddick will retire after he plays his last match during the ongoing 2012 US Open. After his departure there would no players on the men's tennis circuit from the US who can mount a serious challenge in the four major grand slams. Andy Roddick was the last American player to win the US Open.

ANDY RODDICK was the last player from the US to win the US Open in 2003. We are talking about the same country, the US, which once dominated US Open like no other. Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras won the US Open title five times each in the Open era, while John McEnroe won it four times and Andre Agassi won it twice. Andy has only won the title once in the last 12 years since he turned pro. Is there a drought in men's tennis in the US? Why aren't there more top-rung tennis players emerging from the talented and competitive US players' market? In fact, there is a shortage of even serious contenders, let alone who can make it to the final four in Grand Slams.

There was a time when players from the US were amongst the most feared, for they were the best in the business and tore opponents apart. There were finals in the US Open, when both the players would be from the US. Take for instance, the 1990 US Open finals between Agassi and Sampras. The same two players battled it out for the same title five years down the line, in 1995. In 1996, the story was the same with two US players playing the final of the US Open - Michael Chang and Pete Sampras.

But, this is no longer the case. No American male player has reached the US Open finals in it's last five editions. Why have American players failed to impress on the world stage as these players did?

It is not that there are no US players on the circuit, apart from Roddick. There are players such as Mardy Fish, James Blake who represent the US, but they have not won any slam till date, forget the US Open. They have won some tournaments here and there but the US Open has always eluded them. Will they ever win? Their best performance in front of their home fans has been a quarter-final finish. They have also been receiving a similar support as those of their peers at Flushing Meadows, but it is their quality that's in question.

Other players from other nations have leaped way ahead of the current crop of US players. We do not find any such player who is capable of carrying that US flag high in the Tennis world, which their peers of the 90s did for the nation. For how long can US Tennis fans bask in the glory of the former great players from the US?

One has to agree that the game has undergone a shift as power game, where European nations have come into the limelight such as Switzerland, Spain, and Serbia. The game has truly become a global one with many more nations playing the game and dominating it - more so at the turn of the last decade. But, it is surprising that the US players have not been able to reach that level, which others have reached.

Yes, there comes a time, when a nation loses its dominance in a sport, as is turning out to be the case with the US men's tennis. Surprisingly, the women's tennis players has been doing comparitively much better with the Williams sisters winning a lot of Grand Slams including the US Open. The ladies seem to have taken over the champion baton from the men in US tennis. Chris Evert passed on the winning champion's baton to Martina Navratilova, who then passed it to Venus, who passed it within her family to Serena. What will happen to the US male Tennis players? Whom will Andy Roddick pass his baton to?