A few months ago, Patrick McEnroe stepped down from his position as head of USTA player development. There was much criticism throughout his tenure that he failed to find and develop the next crop of elite American male players. While it may be fair to criticize him for presiding over a historic low period in American men’s tennis, one of the deepest and more talented groups of American teenagers is poised to break through in the next couple of years.
Perhaps the best sign for American men’s tennis is not the talent of any one individual player in this group (including Jared Donaldson, Francis Tiafoe, Stefan Kozlov, Noah Rubin, Michael Mmoh, Tommy Paul, Ernesto Escobedo, Deiton Baughman and a handful of others), but the fact that there are so many of them with the chance to succeed. It is well known that success for countries often comes in waves. Down periods are often followed by several players reaching the top around the same time. There are several likely reasons behind this (such as benefiting from tough competition while growing up, good training grounds, smart coaching, popularity of tennis, etc) but it is a trend that has been hard to miss.
American men’s tennis in the 1990s was more than the period of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, as they were part of a deep group that pushed each other throughout their careers. Sampras and Agassi grew up not only competing against each other, but had to deal with Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Todd Martin, Mal Washington and a host of others who saw success on the pro tour. While Sampras and Agassi may have been great regardless, they’ve admitted to benefiting from the tough competition they faced from their countrymen from juniors to the pros.
In recent years, Spain and France have each seen deep and talented groups of players come up around the same time. While none of the other Spanish players have come close to reaching the success of Rafael Nadal, others such as David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez, Nicolas Almagro, Tommy Robredo and Fernando Verdasco have benefited from having each other to use as measuring sticks and training partners. Similarly, the talented French group of Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon all arrived on the pro tour around the same time and have been staples of the top twenty. While they may not have any grand slam titles to show for it, this French group likely benefited from the competition they faced within their country from a young age.
On the women’s side, Russia saw several players have great runs in the late 1990s and 2000s. While Maria Sharapova has grabbed most of the headlines of late, several others such as Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva, Anna Kournikova (yes her), Dinara Safina, Vera Zvonareva, Anastasia Myskina, and Nadia Petrova all had success at the highest level of the WTA tour in a relatively short period of time. Several of them won grand slams in singles or doubles, and they pushed each other to the top of the game.
Going back further, Australia dominated tennis with several legendary players in the 1960s. Similarly, Sweden had several great players rise to the top of the game in the 1970s and 80s. Players from the same country succeeding in bunches is something that has been occurring throughout most of tennis’ modern era.
While it’s too early to predict how this group of young Americans will do on an individual basis, they should continue to benefit from the competition they’ll face amongst each other. They’ll be battling it out on the challenger tour and in USTA training sessions for the next few years, and at least a few should thrive from the almost daily competition they will face. To avoid getting passed by the rest of this deep group (and as a result seeing their USTA funding and endorsements reduced) they will have no choice but to take their training to new levels. It may be naive to predict grand slam titles from multiple members out of this group, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see a handful of them go on to have highly successful careers.
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