U.S. tennis, particularly on the men’s side, has been going through something of a lean patch in recent years.
The statistic that perhaps best highlights that is that there has not been an American winner of the men’s US Open title since Andy Roddick all the way back in 2003. For reference, Ben Shelton was less than a year old when that happened!
In fact, that is the last time an American man won a Grand Slam at all. That triumph in 2003 meant a U.S. man had won seven of the last 11 titles at Flushing Meadows after the dominance of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi before Roddick.
Three seeded American men are in action today — Fritz (12), Shelton (13) and Tiafoe (20) — and they will all harbor genuine ambitions of lifting the famous title if they make it through today’s matches.
