In the year of 2003, when Andy Roddick lifted the US Open trophy before the exultant crowd of Arthur Ashe, the supremacy of men’s tennis in America seemed impregnable. But, since that day of September, sixteen years ago, no American Tennis Player has won a single Grand Slam.
Why the US has not been able to give a Grand Slam winner in 16 years?
Recently, John Patrick McEnroe, the retired American Tennis star reflected plenty of reasons as to why the US has not had a single winner of Grand Slam, for the past sixteen years.
He was of the opinion that though Tiafoe is an excellent athlete but he is still in the learning phase.
John said: “We have Tiafoe who is a great athlete. He’s still learning. He made a breakthrough getting to the quarters of Australia. He feels that there are going to be dangerous guys in the game who are also quicker whereas these traits are lacking in the current players for making a stellar breakthrough.
The American said that it would have been great for the men’s tennis in the country if we had a player winning major tournaments: “It would be so helpful for the men’s game if we had a guy that was winning Slams.”
When asked about the chances of Americans winning the Wimbledon tournament, John added that: “I think that the odds are pretty low. Isner has been out. He finally seemed to figure out how to play on grass last year, so he’s sort of an unknown quantity. And the other guys to me, whether it’s Opelka, he’s like a younger version, Tiafoe has been struggling”.
He added further that: “There have been some injuries. Fritz is solid, but he doesn’t look to me like there are guys ready to go and make that move or they would make that deep run”.
The former American tennis great believes that it is critical for any player to make the final jump into winning the slams.
However, McEnroe listed his favourites and unabashedly took the names of “The Big Three” saying that: “Now, we have good athletes. It’s that the cream of the crop, you look at Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Murray, these players are some of the best athletes their country has produced”.
