Thanks to Andy Murray, the national nightmare of British tennis fans and journalists alike is over.
For years, the British did all they could to will Greg Rusedski and Tim Henman to Wimbledon wins.
Those two were nice players, both were ranked as high as fourth at one point in their careers, but it always seemed unlikely that either of those two were going to raise their level of play and win the whole enchilada at Wimbledon.
Because it was all Great Britain had, though, an unreasonable level of expectation and hope was thrown on them. I don't have to tell you how that ended. Both retired having never reached the final at any major, Wimbledon included.
Then came Murray. There was buzz early on that he would be the one to end the curse of Fred Perry at Wimbledon, but that success didn't come nearly as fast as the British would have liked.
Murray was blown off the court in his first three major finals and then at his first Wimbledon final in 2012, he won the first set against Roger Federer only to have Federer come back and win the next three. It was hard to blame anyone for wondering if Murray was really any closer to winning Wimbledon, or any other major for that matter.
Murray put those concerns to rest with a win at the US Open later that year and now, he has achieved what I can only assume was the biggest goal on his list, winning Wimbledon.
So now the question is which of the other countries with a Grand Slam to their name will have a home country winner next?
The longest drought now belongs to Australia.
Even though Lleyton Hewitt reached number one in the world and won two major titles (2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon) in his career and Pat Rafter won the US Open twice, Mark Edmondson (1976) is the last Australian man to win the Australian Open.
All it takes to change a country's outlook on the future is one super-talented youngster (Jerzy Janowicz for Poland, anyone?), so things can change quickly, but barring that, I think the wait for the Aussies is likely to be the longest of the three.
Currently, they only have three players in the top 100 of the ATP rankings and one of them is Hewitt. I love Rusty as much as the next guy, but he's not going to win another major at this stage of his career.
That leaves Bernard Tomic (59, but rising after a good showing at Wimbledon) and Marinko Matosevic (72).
At 27, Matosevic is no longer a prospect and I was honestly surprised to see that he is ranked as high as he is. He has never reached the second round of a major, so it's tough to imagine him making a real run.
Tomic is a little different case. He has the talent to challenge for a Grand Slam title, but there are always distractions around him, whether it's a run-in with the law, a spat with Tennis Australia, or drama surrounding his father, who is also his primary coach.
I think he has a real chance to be Australia's Henman, although his temperament is more like Rusedski.
There are a handful of promising players coming up through the system, including players with Grand Slam experience like James Duckworth and Nick Kyrgios, but those guys haven't made a big move yet.
In a nation that should be counted among the biggest historical powers in tennis history, the wait for a player capable of winning a major championship must be excruciating.
France has had the next-longest wait. Yannick Noah, with a win in 1983, is the last French man to win the French Open.
If you're handicapping which of the nations will have a player break through first, the safe bet is with France.
There are 12 Frenchmen ranked in the top 100 and with the way their federation has been pumping out young players of late, it's hard to imagine that well drying up any time soon.
Heck, you could see them breaking their drought here in the next couple of years if Jo-Wilfried Tsonga can put together two weeks of good tennis at Roland Garros. His results there have improved over the last several years and despite his claim that no French man will ever win the French Open, he has a real shot.
That leaves, of course, the USA. You wouldn't believe it thanks to all the hand-wringing over the lack of an American Grand Slam champion, but the Americans have had the shortest wait of the three.
It is so often described as having been ten long years since Andy Roddick won the US Open, but in the grand scheme of things, it has just been ten years.
In terms of the wait for their next home-grown winner of their domestic Open, I would put them ahead of the Australians but behind the French.
Unlike the Aussies, the Americans do have a couple of highly-ranked players in John Isner and Sam Querrey that are still in the prime of their careers, but unlike the French, they don't have a player of Tsonga's caliber that you would describe as a threat to win a major as it stands right now.
The bigger problem for the Yanks is that there is a level of uncertainty about the group of players coming up behind Isner and Querrey. That group ranges from elite junior players that have flamed out at the top level (Donald Young) to decorated NCAA champions (Steve Johnson) to solid pros that haven't yet taken the next step in their development (Ryan Harrison).
In short, there is no Benoit Paire, a 24-year-old Frenchman ranked in the Top-25, in this group.
For my money, the most promising of the kids is Jack Sock. The big hitter from Nebraska (sound familiar?) won the Junior US Open championship in 2010 and in 2011, he won the US Open mixed doubles championship with Melanie Oudin.
I'm not sure about you, but even in this day and age when players are peaking later in their careers, I'm not sold that any of those guys, even Sock, are going to be the next American US Open champ.
Even though the droughts vary in length, they surely feel like eternities for fans in each of the respective countries. Let's just hope for their sake that their streaks don't extend as long as Great Britain's did.
No comments:
Post a Comment