Take the year end rankings in 2003, for example. Andy Roddick was #1, Agassi was #4... then you had Mardy Fish at 20, Vince Spadea at 29, Robby Ginepri at 32, Taylor Dent at 33, James Blake at 37, Jan-Michael Gambill at 51, Todd Martin at 68, Brian Vahaly at 75. That was 10 years ago, we knew we were on a decline. But we had two players in the top 10 and 10 players in the top 100. No one had heard of Brian Vahaly then, or now, and yet his ranking then would be good enough to be the #3 American now. Spadea was a joke back then, now he'd be a Davis Cup mainstay with that ranking. Things weren't that great in 2003 but they were much better than they are now.
Partly to blame is the Roddick generation that's dropped like flies. Starting with Roddick, who would easily still be a top 20 player if he hadn't retired, he decided to leave the game maybe slightly prematurely compared to some because his body was breaking down. Ditto Mardy Fish (heart condition) and Taylor Dent (back). Ginepri is still playing here and there, but he's had lots of injuries, and James Blake has finally given up on his knee. That class had good players but they weren't able to play past their early 30s due to injuries. The crop of players in between them and the Ryan Harrison generation has been the issue. Besides Isner and Querrey, who have both sort of made it, we just have a slew of guys that didn't pan out. I call it the "lost generation". You're thinking "ok like who?". Here's a list of guys you may or may not have ever heard of: Amer Delic (no longer American), K. J. Hippensteel, Scoville Jenkins, Brendan Evans, Sam Warburg, Ryler Deheart, Ryan Sweeting, Todd Widom, Jesse Witten, Alex Kuznetsov, Travis Rettenmaier, Scott Oudsema to name a few. Who are these guys? They are all guys with huge serves and huge forehands, that struggled to mixed results on the challenger tour and never broke through.
But if you have huge serve and a huge forehand you can succeed in tennis right? Well, not anymore, and that was the problem for these guys. The USTA wants to tell you these guys didn't work hard enough to defend their methods, but the reality is these guys were all players with promise and potential that were trained wrong. Pure and simple. The game became slower.
So this all started when the ATP decided they were sick of Sergi Bruguera owning the French while Pete Sampras owned Wimbledon... with a slew of mixed results on hard. They wanted more consistency throughout the year. To market their brand, they needed the same faces showing up deep in each tournament, regardless of the surface, to help promote the sport in a more cohesive way. They didn't want the Spanish players to not even bother showing up at Wimbledon, and they didn't want their #1 player losing in the first round of the French (like Sampras did so often). So they made the surfaces more similar and they made the game slower. The end result is that you now see Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and company always in the semi finals of each grand slam. Surfaces just don't play that different anymore. The balls are slower, the courts are slower and they are more similar. American tennis just didn't adapt. And don't give me this "what about the Bryan brothers or the women's game???". Behind the Bryans, men's doubles looks just as bleak... and with women the huge serve and forehand still works because the movement on the WTA isn't as ridiculous good as the movement (read: defensive tennis) on the ATP tour. I maintain their is a fundamental flaw in how we were teaching tennis to these girls for the last 10-15 years.
So the Scoville Jenkins' and Sam Warburgs' of the world had zero support from the USTA, other than "hey, hit your serve at 130 and destroy this forehand for a winner and you'll win grand slams!". End result is these players and so many others had undeveloped backhands they were constantly running around, and they didn't have the defensive skills necessary to survive in the modern game, and they didn't think they needed crazy fitness because they thought the points would be so short. It's not that they couldn't have been developed that way, it's that the USTA kind of blew it. The game was changing, and the teaching we had didn't adapt to it. The French and Spanish teaching methods, by comparison, didn't need to change. They fit in perfectly with the shift. So instead, what was ending the point in 1 to 3 strokes tennis, became 3 to 5 strokes. Or more. The degree of difficulty for first strike tennis is much harder now, and because of the risk assumed to begin with the percentages are down even more than when they started playing the "blueprint American way". And of course, when this offensive blueprint demanded a player to come into the net, the technology of the strings and racquets made them infinitely easier to pass. Nice cherry on top there.
Pete Sampras' style of game would not have survived in this era. He was so good and special he may still have won Wimbledon in his prime today, but he wouldn't be #1 and he would not have multiple grand slams. With the speed of the balls, courts, and the strings/racquets, Nadal in his prime would have demolished Sampras on hard. Sampras could and would have had to adapt his game to survive in this era. And that's just it, the generation in between Roddick and Harrison never adapted. They were coached to hit huge, like Roddick, like Sampras, and they paid for it. The European players were taught a well rounded game that may cost them on fast surfaces against huge hitters, but it was a style that would fit a multitude of various conditions. The American style only fit one condition, and so the method was a one trick pony that went extinct. The blueprint only works when you're 6'10" and you have the best serve in tennis history.
So why did Roddick survive? Well, he had a one of a kind serve for starters... but look at the progression of his forehand over the course of his career. It became about survival, not winning slams. Because going for broke in this era is not sustainable. It may be for guys like Berdych, Tsonga, Isner and Raonic... but unless you are a freak of nature (and Roddick is not) that won't work anymore.
Tennis is won with the legs these days unless, again, you are a freak of nature. You can call Nadal as "shotmaker" if you want... but he's a pusher. Sure his forehand is incredibly heavy and he will pull you off the court, but that only works because the court is slow enough to allow him to impose his rhythm and not allow the opponent to flatten out a winner down the line on him. And look, Nadal would be awesome regardless of the racquets, balls, courts, or strings... I'm just saying he would lose A LOT more on faster surfaces to players with big shots. Think about the top players:
Djokovic is a pusher.
Murray is a pusher.
Nadal is a pusher.
Ferrer is a pusher.
Who in the top 10 is a "shotmaker"? Federer, Delpo, Berdych and Tsonga. All four of those guys, by the way, play ridiculous defense for their size.
The USTA has finally caught on and so the younger generation of players are starting to defend better, they're starting to get more fit and they are starting to have more variety in their game. They have to if they want to succeed. So it will take time, but eventually our best players will be firmly in the top 50 again. I'm not ready to say we have a #1 in the making, but right now I'd settle for 5 or 6 guys in the top 50 instead of TWO.
Sometimes it's just hard to let go of the urge to resist the losing formula that is hitting your serve and forehand as hard as you can, which is the American way. That's why we suck. But I do believe we finally get it. We'll just had to pay for it another 2-3 years before this younger generation can develop into the modern game demands.
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