History Is Made As No American Men In Top 20

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 12th August 2013

History Is Made As No American Men In Top 20

epa03819918 Canadian Vasek Pospisil reacts against the Canadian Raonic Milos during the men's semi-final singles match at the Rogers Cup Open ATP tennis tournament in Montreal, Canada, 10 August 2013. EPA/ANDRE PICHETTE |

Today marks an ignominious point in the tennis history of the United States of America with not a single player figuring in the ATP World Tour’s top 20 for the first time since world rankings began almost 40 years ago. And the most honored American champion of them all, Pete Sampras believes he knows the reason.

Sampras most certainly comes from a by-gone time and established great rivalries with two American peers, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi who both also held the world no.1 ranking. But the winner of 14 Grand Slam singles titles and ranked player for 286 weeks, maintains a sense of complacency is the reason for the drop in American tennis’ fortunes.

“I just think the world’s got a little better,” said Sampras, who ended year ending world no.1 six years straight from 1993 to 1998. “Maybe in the US we’ve got a little complacent. I think a lot of these other countries, their best athletes are playing tennis. Our best athletes are playing other sports, other than tennis.”

John Isner’s first round demise against Canadian Vasek Pospisil in Montreal’s Rogers Cup was the actual result that caused the outbreak of soul searching in American tennis but there are other extenuating circumstances such as Mardy Fish’s health concerns, what some viewed as a premature retirement on behalf of Andy Roddick and the inability of much vaunted youngsters such as Donald Young and Ryan Harrison to make the big breakthrough.

However Sampras believes the his era, or that where Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe vied for top position with the likes of Gene Mayer, Eliot Teltscher, Vitas Gerulaitis and Jimmy Arias also figuring in the world’s top ten is unlikely to be replicated anytime soon.

“They were just rare times where everything clicked,” said Sampras who was in Montreal to be inducted into the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame . “Now people are wondering where the next Andre is or Pete or whatever. It doesn’t happen every 10 years. Hopefully we can get a crew of young kids coming up that are hungry, that want to do well.”

The only man to have held the world no.1 ranking more weeks than Sampras is Roger Federer who turned 32 years of age last week. The Swiss is set to return to action in this week’s seventh leg of the ATP’s Masters 1000 series at Cincinnati’s Western and Southern Open and must decide whether to continue his experiment with 98-inch racket he used without too much success in Gstaad and Hamburg or return to his tried and tested 90-inch racket.

Sampras has a view on the subject and said: “I don’t think Roger, he’s lost a few matches, I don’t think he needs to panic and feel he needs to change everything. He’s still a great player and always will be. I will be curious to see if he plays with the bigger racket at the Open.

“I think a bigger racket can help in certain areas, maybe on the high backhand. That’s the shot I feel like it’s helped me. Roger’s forehand is such his bread and butter, and if he’s thinking twice about it, that’s not a good thing.”