[StatRacket]

One of the reasons Americans aren't performing as well as in decades past, is that there are relatively less USA events.

http://thebigtip.com.au/tennis/atp-world-tour-changes

[evilmindbulgaria]

When was the last time Sweden had 2 Top-10 players?

[Blackbriar]

Tennis is an individual sport. After Nadal's retirement, there will be a vacuum in spanish tennis with (probably) no GS champion before a few years. German tennis collapsed after Graf's departure, and it was almost 20 years ago.


In France, we have plenty of top 100 players, but 0 champion and 0 Grand Slam winner since 1983 (in men tennis). What's the purpose of having so many "good" players and not a single "great" player? We can surely win the Davis Cup, i guess, but what else?

Obviously Monfils/Simon/Gasquet/Tsonga will not win a GS, despite the insane overrating they have in France everytime one of them beats a good player.

Gasquet's career was almost destroyed by medias, because they expected too much of him, overestimating him as the "next world n°1" though he was in fact "only" a good player and not The Great Champion.
You would be surprised to learn that medias keep talking about Tsonga's win over Nadal in 2008! And they keep saying he can still be this player, and still wins Australian Open, without even watching his today's results.
Monfils was on magazine's cover before he won a tournament! before he was even a top 100 players!

Obviously, people are pissed off now because they don't see any of the promised result coming. And France's tennis is going down too : whe fell from World Group for the first time in our history last week at Fed Cup. All french newcomers are far from being any good as our top 4, Rufin, Mina & co are top 500 players now and not very promising. With the retirement of Mauresmo, things will get even worse. Ultimately we will start to lose big tournaments (except RG) because of our lack of good competitors.

[careergrandslam]

dont worry spain will have another great tennis player once rafa retires.
xisca will pop out a couple of little baby rafas in a few years and daddy will nurse those little baby rafas into the next tennis legend. that nadal family has good sporting genes.

also uncle toni has 2 little boys, they might turn into great tennis players oneday. with the help of uncle toni and their cousin rafa, they cant go wrong.

[TennisOnWood]

Originally Posted by evilmindbulgaria

When was the last time Sweden had 2 Top-10 players?

They had 4 in September 1986, Wilander, Edberg, Nystrom and Pernfors

They had 3 in June 1987, Wilander, Edberg and Carlsson

They had 2 in March 1991, Edberg and Svensson

[Dougie]

Originally Posted by StatRacket

One of the reasons Americans aren't performing as well as in decades past, is that there are relatively less USA events.

The amount of USA tournaments has been the same for 20 years now, so that doesn´t really explain it, IMO. Though it wouldn´t hurt the american players to play some of the european clay tournaments once in a while.

[Nathaliia]

Sweden was probably also close to having them both in top 10 in the times of Enqvist, T. Johansson and Bjorkman.

Soderling and J. Johansson were hanging quite high together for a while.

Well, they have Lindell (developing in the challengers now, I think todayhe plays even the doubles final, and it's still such a kid) and Berta (recent junior #1) to look for.

[samjones]

Originally Posted by StatRacket

One of the reasons Americans aren't performing as well as in decades past, is that there are relatively less USA events.

http://thebigtip.com.au/tennis/atp-world-tour-changes

That's the problem with tennis. Not enough American tournaments. I would scrap the clay court season entirely and just make it an American hardcourt season from IW straight through to Wimbledon.

It's preposterous what cities don't have a tournament. Phoenix, Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Philly, etc., etc.

I don't think American tennis really needs this European clay court bullshit.

[SetSampras]

Where u been? American's mens tennis declined the minute Agassi and Sampras retired close to 10 years ago for Sampras and 5 years ago for Andre. From there all we had were clowns like Roddick and Blake, Isner,Querry, etc.. To carry the torch.. It was obvious once the days of Mac, Courier,, Andre, Pete, Connors etc.. ended there was going to be no one good enough to carry on the lineage.


For my fellow americans, it has to be heartbreaking to think about what we have come from, to what we have now.

[Har-Tru]

Originally Posted by samjones

That's the problem with tennis. Not enough American tournaments. I would scrap the clay court season entirely and just make it an American hardcourt season from IW straight through to Wimbledon.

It's preposterous what cities don't have a tournament. Phoenix, Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Philly, etc., etc.

I don't think American tennis really needs this European clay court bullshit.

Hell YEAH baby, let's do it!

[samjones]

Originally Posted by SetSampras

Where u been? American's mens tennis declined the minute Agassi and Sampras retired close to 10 years ago for Sampras and 5 years ago for Andre. From there all we had were clowns like Roddick and Blake, Isner,Querry, etc.. To carry the torch.. It was obvious once the days of Mac, Courier,, Andre, Pete, Connors etc.. ended there was going to be no one good enough to carry on the lineage.

No it wasn't. Nobody carried the torch, but it wasn't obvious that Blake and Roddick wouldn't be able to. Andy Roddick won Canada, Cinci, and USO in '03 and he was ranked number 1 in the world. It wasn't obvious that he wouldn't be as good as the players that you named.

[SetSampras]

Originally Posted by samjones

No it wasn't. Nobody carried the torch, but it wasn't obvious that Blake and Roddick wouldn't be able to. Andy Roddick won Canada, Cinci, and USO in '03 and he was ranked number 1 in the world. It wasn't obvious that he wouldn't be as good as the players that you named.

It was obvious to guys who followed the Mac, Connors, Sampras, Agassi, Courier days.. That Roddick, Blake etc.. Just didn't have the talent to dominate tennis and achieve what these guys did. Roddick even from the BEGINNING back in 2001-2002 you could see didnt have the speed, net game, talent, baseline game etc.. That his predecessors had.


Roddick and the rest just didn't have the standard foundation to carry on that domination of America.. Roddick didn't have the talent of those guys.. Gimme a damm break.. It was obvious from the start.. He had more holes in his game then a fucking pin cushion.



And really,... Roddick even winning his sole slam at the USO in 2003 was an utter joke.. He should have lost to Nalbandian if not for those ridiculous horrible calls at the end.


For sure, he would have won a few slams if not for Fed, but he wasn't as good as the americans that came before him

[SetSampras]

Most knew Roddick wasn't what the media hype was insisting he was, back when he was getting his ass kicked by a 31 year old Sampras at the USO in his last slam ever or getting his ass kicked by a mid 30s brokeback agassi 5-1 in the h2h or Ivanesivic at wimbledon

So the media was portraying him one way.. The real fans who followed tennis for years, knew better

[Roddickominator]

what a joke indeed. I agree that it's about time that tennis stepped out of the stone age and stopped playing on such a childish, amateur surface. If we didn't have the technology to create actual decent courts then I could understand it, but playing a classy game like tennis on European clay courts is pathetic.

[careergrandslam]

imo the US has too many tournaments, give some to china.

get rid of cincy and these smaller MM tournaments in the US.

u want the US to dominate every global event on earth.
neocon mindset.