• Tono
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Topic: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

With the good results seen at this years US Open are we seeing a "mini' revival from American tennis players??
One quarter of the mens round of 16 are American...Fish, Isner, Young & Roddick!!
Only Serena remains in the women's draw and we all know how good she is...but we have seen some encouraging performances from Christina McHale & Sloane Stephens too! I think McHale could be a goodie smile

Or is this ONLY bcoz they are playing on US soil and in front of their home fans that we have seen a number of great efforts at Flushing Meadows, all too often we see the likes of Harrison, Bogomolov, Sweeting, Blake, Russell and even the the bigger names ONLY doing well in the USA.
I know all players lift and play better when they feel at home...but apart from the "old" Andy Roddick and occassionally Mardy Fish, John Isner and sometimes Sam Querrey the rest almost seem to wait for the American hard court season to make some noise....for example..are we going to see some more self belief out of a Donald Young after this tournament?? I'd like to think so, I'd like to see him back it up in Australia for example...Tomic did it at Wimbledon after performing well at home....it's about time we saw another TOP American player burst onto the scene...who is talented enough to do it, and more importantly who WANTS it the most??

What's your thoughts everyone??

  • Registered: Jan. 14, 2010
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Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

In short...NO! haha.

  • Aiur
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Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

I'm with Zygote. Roddick, Fish and Blake are at the end of their careers. Isner doesn't have the game to be a top 10 player and Querrey just fell off the grid completely. They're considered the next best after Roddick and Fish. Further down the line we have Young, Sweeting and Harrison. Young is clearly the most talented out of those three guys. The thing with Young (and the other two for that matter) is they can't do anything away from a hard court. Sweeting won a clay court title earlier this year, but that was in Houston where no real dirtballers ever go to play, if you even want to consider that surface as clay to begin with.

In my eyes, once Roddick, Fish and Blake are gone, it will be a bleak 3-5 years for men's tennis in the US. A young player would have to come out of nowhere and surprise everyone in the next year or two (like Dolgopolov or Raonic this year) for that outlook to change.

  • Registered: Jan. 14, 2010
  • Posts: 37

Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

Part of the problem is they try to glamorize these kids before they're really stars.  Look at Oudin.  We could look and tell she wasn't going to be a great player, but of course here in the U.S. they're going to over-dramatize everything.  Same thing probably happened with Young.  It's like you do well in one tournament and all of a sudden you're supposed to be the next big thing.  Its more than that.  Every one is talking about "good results" etc. this week.  Maybe they need to raise their standards and say good is like a QF of a major because this is getting ridiculous.  Coverage on ESPN is killing these kids.  We don't need to see EVERY Americans match that comes on.  We need to see the star players and that's it.  Federer or Djoker could be on but we'd still see Roddick and Blake. 

Secondly, as far as I know it takes money to learn how to play tennis well.  When you have other options like basketball, baseball, football, etc. that don't cost as much to learn then parents are going to choose that.  Then the fact that we only show a few tournaments here a year (besides the tennis channel which isn't free) probably doesn't help for marketing.  Kids don't have much to look up to if they don't know when their idols are actually on T.V.

  • Tono
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Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

Good comments guys...money is definitely a factor for sure and the different variety of sports and money available to these young people makes it more difficult too.
Surely there can be another Chang or Courier come out of the woodwork in the next few years...surely somewhere along the line the States have gotta have someone who is gonna be top 5 or so...how good is this Jack Sock gonna be??

Having said all that...how many americans (Serena excluded) do you expect will still be alive at the quarter-final stage of the comp??
Donald Young - NO
Andy Roddick - NO
Mardy Fish - Yes/Maybe
John Isner - Yes/Maybe

We need another Sampras or Agassi to burst onto the scene from the USA...and that's coming from a "kiwi" smile

  • Arvis
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  • Registered: Jan. 10, 2011
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Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

Roddick could go to the semis this year.  I think he has a better shot than Isner, at least.

But nobody REALLY knows.  The only thing that's certain is: Djokovic is going to win the whole thing.

-Arvis

  • Tono
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Re: Is American tennis experiencing a mini revival??

Nothing is EVER certain Arvis,,,and I have to disagree with you about Roddick, he hasn't really played anybody of note yet, Andy looks slow around the court and Ferrer will be too good for him and take him out I suspect!