Much has been made about the dire state of American tennis lately. If I had a nickel for every article that shows up in my google reader about how much we are not as good as we used to be, we have no grand slam contenders, etc., I could buy a diet coke from my office’s vending machine (not great riches, no, but how many people actually write about tennis in major publications?).
First of all, we have 8 guys in the top 100, 4 of whom are in the top 40. 2 of whom are just outside of the top 10 and could very well rise higher as soon the tour moves to grass and hardcourts. Speaking of which…
Second of all, it is clay season. We are never good on clay. Any one expecting solid results on the dirt is incredibly unrealistic, especially with our current roster. Sure, sometimes we have a player win a random clay tournament here and there (Hi Ryan Sweeting!). But the guys were have now? Not going to happen all that much.
Third, although doubles is the ugly step-child of tennis, we are winning matches there. The Bryans clinched their 71st title last week and pretty much are the GOAT of doubles teams. Quisner also have been doing well. Just today they 3rd seed Bhupathi/Paes 6-3, 3-6, 10-5! Even Fish/Roddick beat Berdych/Dlouhy 19-17 in the super tie break!.
And Mardy “Rodney Dangerfield of Tennis” Fish is also still alive in the singles in Rome, with really solid wins over Ljubicic and Giraldo. I do not understand why he does not get more respect from people. Turning his career around and surging to the top of American tennis is a major achievement that should be applauded, not used as evidence of our decline. I have complained about this before and will not rehash it here, but come on, people!
Of course, the naysayers will not stop until someone wins a (singles) slam. And no, the US does not have a player on Djokovic’s level. But who does (yes, Serbia, but that’s not my point)? We should appreciate and cheer for the players that we do have. Commend their accomplishments instead of jeering their failures. Who knows where some positive reinforcement could get us? All I know for sure is that it is a hell of a lot more enjoyable as a tennis fan to support our guys rathen than bring them down.
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I agree with you about Fish He seems to be a bit of a laughing stock, and I don’t understand why. FWIW, he’s my favourite US player!
All great points you make but I want to highlight one thing you said – it’s clay season. And the drama with clay season, of course, is that no Americans are good on it (although, hey, Robbie Ginepri! Was that last year at RG?) and I think that’s the worry. With the Europeans basically dominating the sport, the issue is that their training on clay makes it a lot easier for them to win in what is literally a third of the season – and they’re not all that bad on hard, either. I’m reading the same sort of articles about Aussie tennis – though our lament probably started a few years earlier – and the facts are there: We need to start training our kids on clay earlier, and better.
Plus, another point: As all of us die-hards know, people really don’t know any of their country’s tennis players unless they’re top 10. I can argue that in some particularly sports-loving countries, the lesser ranked are a big deal – e.g. Frederico Gil in Portugal; all of the Italians at home (as we’ve witnessed this week!) but the fact is that in the United States, no one cares unless you’ve got a slam or a number one next to your name. Everyone knows Andy Roddick, but how many casual tennis fans know about the Bryan Brothers? It is wonderful having such great players in your stable, but unless they can actually help with marketing the sport for the future, it’s not going to create any better younger ones in the next generation who can turn that slide right around.
But yeah, the whinges suck. Do something about it, p’raps…
When it comes to American tennis nobody wants 1-hit wonders. Fish didn’t take his fitness and nutrition seriously until the past 12-18 months, which is why he suffered through so many injuries over his career. Fish should be applauded for taking his commitment to another level and he is being rewarded with better results. I bet he has moments where he wishes he had done this a whole lot sooner, and the rest of the American tennis need to take note. Too many times the nutrition is the last component that players really take seriously, but it is amazing how much difference it makes when they finally figure it out. Great job Mardy Fish!
The reason I am so upset at the state of tennis (both men’s and women’s-my god-when Serena and Venus are off doing fashion shoots decent American women players are nowhere to be seen!) is that for all the money and energy poured into the USTA and spent by helicopter parents to generate the next Evert or Sampras, the product out there is very poor compared to piddling (sorry small European nations, but come on…) places like Croatia, Serbia, the Czech Republic etc., who are producing as many decent players as we are with populations the size of Illinois. What the hell are we doing here that isn’t working? Part of it seems to be motivation- none of these guys really plays any serious tennis after the US Open, none of them take clay seriously, quit before they start, and pretty much only seem to win when they can go to a burger joint afterwards (ie on home soil). Querrey is the worst of the bunch-clearly talented but obviously a complete head case-how else to explain his ability to win on clay in Serbia a year ago and yet get bounced from San Jose and Delray Beach before some qualifiers even took the court? He doesn’t seem like he even thinks about playing what is, after all, his chosen profession until around July. I so much want to be a SAM-URAI, but how can I when I know that a simple match against a Polish journeyman might be a straight set loss, or he might beat Murray or Roddick; who the hell knows which Querrey will show up? Isner is the only guy out there that seems to care and will battle out there on court regardless of who or where he is playing (see French Open 2011, Wimbledon 2010). This guy probably is much less talented than Querrey yet he is a better player–more Isners!! Fish I give credit to for bouncing into the top 10 at this late stage of his career but seriously–what has he ever won?? I mean Harold Solomon, Eddie Dibbs, Vitas Gerulaitis, the list goes on and on and on, won more than he has won. When I was young McEnroe and Connors were just the tip of a very large iceberg. Today, probably owing to global warming, the iceberg has melted and a few pieces of ice are flowing on top of a deep and empty ocean devoid of any upcoming talent. Roddick has pretty obviously given up on being a serious day in day out tennis player but even he was well ahead of any young American players in their 20s today in terms of his accomplishments by the age of 19 . Take at look at the challengers and futures events on US soil- who is winning? Japanese, Argentine, Indian, Croatian, Spanish etc., youngsters and a few older American vets like Kendrick and Reynolds. Where are the young guys who used to show up at the challengers and win the first few out of the gate then blow into the ATP like the Roddicks, Samprases, Agassi’s, and even Querreys (who is nowhere near fulfilling his early promise)? Sweeting, Harrison, Young?? decent guys, probably will make some money at this job, but I can’t see any of them even getting to a Masters Series final, maybe not even a 500 pointer. Not a knock on them, good luck to them, but the data just does not support the idea that they will be top 5 players, unless they improve dramatically in the next six months.
Don’t get me wrong–I really like the international flavor of tennis today and we are definitely witnessing the finest set of top players in a long time but the dearth of American talent should send alarm bells off as the potential long term demise of American tennis will be accelerated when nobody in the US has anybody to get behind in the near future (I would say the present as nobody in the US contingent has the ability or desire to win a Grand Slam and maybe not even a Masters Series tourney anymore). How long do Cincinnati, Indian Wells, Miami and all the 500 point tourneys (Memphis, DC etc) on US soil expect to survive when they are being won by journeymen vets from Europe or Latin America or relatively unknown up and coming Eastern European players? Why should casual tennis fans go at all if there are no locals to root for? I am merely suggesting that this is the reality and the “ideal” of going to watch tennis for the sake of watching tennis regardless of the player’s nationality is nice but untenable from a marketing perspective–US tennis needs some winners to get behind to give the sport some more press and attention in the US or it will wither and die and sponsors will take their money elsewhere to the newest hot sport. Then the golden age of tennis in America will truly be just a memory to those of us who were lucky enough to see Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, McEnroe, Connors, Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Courier, and even my personal favorites Tim Mayotte and Todd Martin (look em up if you are under 30–you will be surprised how good these guys were compared to the Querrey’s and Fishes of today). Clearly the system for producing players (like the auto industry or the real estate market) is broken and needs to be carefully examined and rebuilt.
I also like doubles and appreciate the work of the Bryans and Quisner in that domain but saying we have some really good doubles players as an argument toward proving American tennis is still strong is like saying Miss Congeniality is the real prize in a beauty contest. When Rafa, Roger, Djokovic and Murray start playing doubles as seriously as they play singles we will see whether the success level will be maintained. I personally wish doubles was taken more seriously but it will not be the thing that sustains tennis in America.
One final note- I have not said much about women’s tennis but even the most superficial glance at the rankings, results, and performance of “up and coming” players will show that if anything, the situation there is even more dire. What the hell happened?? I remember when everybody used to jump on the Williams’ parents for pushing their kids so hard but heck, they came through didn’t they?? Somebody ought to go and get that formula and try it out. Maybe two parts talent, one part necessity, and one part grit and determination, with a dash of tyrannical parenting thrown in to get the media on your case, (except of course, when it works, after which you are a genius–see Woods, Eldrick).
Sure its hard to be a pro tennis player but its also hard being a coal miner and a cop, a teacher, and working the night shift at Motel 6 in Beaumont Texas, so maybe a little criticism of the lack of backbone and drive of our young and privileged (I would even say incredibly fortunate–imagine being able to get paid to travel the world and work a few days a week for maybe 30-40 weeks a year–I would do it in a New York minute if I had any ability at all and was 25 years younger) tennis players is not out of order. Perhaps it is the “Everyone is above average” attitude prevalent today that precludes criticism of under-performance but it is clear that the players out there now are under-performing and if they had a “real job” they would probably be fired. Sorry Sam, but that is the cold truth. And that is the price of celebrity as well, so people who say we should not criticize the state of tennis and individual players are just plain wrong. It is not whingeing, it is what more parents and teachers and coaches and bosses and even tennis fans should do–it is their duty. When the product is not good enough someone needs to say as much.
Yes, it really is that bad. Fine, the Bryan bros are great, but let’s face it, singles are where it’s at, and more peope know the names of Ashe and Connors than Bryan.
Looking back, it’s almost shocking how US tennis just fell off the table 8 years ago. Thirty five grand slam events have passed since the last US champion of one of the four major tournaments. Andy Roddick won the US Open in 2003 and the door slammed shut on US Tennis,. Since then the US has had no champs, Roddick has been runnerup 4 times, (only once since 2006) and Agassi had his last gasp as a runnerup in 2005. Basically in 8 years of men’s singles, we’ve had no champs, one genuine challenger and one final effort from an over the hill former champ. And it gets worse if you’re tallying from 2007: in the past five years, one runnerup, no champs. Pretty paltry showing from a country that in the 8 years BEFORE Roddick’s US Open win had 15 championships and 13 runnerup finishes, from a wide variety of players (Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Philippoussis, Washington, Martin). And right before that, Jim Courier was tearing it up.
Hopefully, Fish has his game working during the current US Open. The fact that our highest ranked player has never made it past a GS quarterfinal just echoes the depths to which US tennis has fallen.