Andy Murray Gives Great Britain Grand Slam Win. Who's Next?

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.

The Best and Worst of Times

What do we make of the 2013 French Open?

You would be hard-pressed to argue that the tournament didn't give us the types of upsets that make Grand Slam events fun and unpredictable.

After all, we saw both Tommy Haas and Tommy Robredo make appearances in the quarterfinals. Haas' success is somewhat expected as he has made a slow climb in the rankings ever since bottoming out a couple of years ago. Robredo, though, was a big surprise. He had put together a nice 2013 to date, but I don't know that anyone expected this type of run out of him.

We also saw David Ferrer make a Grand Slam final for the first time in his career. After several years of being a lock to advance to and lose in the quarters or semis, it was nice to see all of his hard work pay off.

But on the other hand, the event ended the way we always expected it to.

We knew that, barring something unforeseen, no one was going to be able to touch Rafael Nadal and that's exactly how it played out.

It's that part that makes me unsure of how to feel about this edition of the French Open.

I fully realize that the opportunity I have been given to watch the greatest clay court player of all-time ply his trade is a gift. No one has dominated clay courts like he has and I get the feeling that the French Open records that he has set will never be touched. I'm one of the lucky few that will get to say that I saw him play at the height of his powers.

I should have been excited to see him dominate. I should have been looking to set everything else aside to really immerse myself in his matches.

But I wasn't and I didn't.

It's just that his dominance was so routine. I will grant you that his semifinal against Novak Djokovic was an instant classic. But for the most part, his run through the field, including his win over Ferrer in the final, was dull, methodical and quick.

It's not fair to either competitor, but even the marathon match between Nadal and Djokovic was predictable in its own way. I think we knew going in that it was going to go five sets and I'm guessing if we were all injected with truth serum, we would have admitted that we knew there was no way Nadal was losing that match.

Maybe I'm alone, and based on a lot of the fantastic journalism I have read over the last couple of days waxing poetic about Nadal's victory it appears that I am, but I was left underwhelmed by what I saw at the French Open.

I know that's wrong of me and it bothers me to no end, but I can't lie. Hopefully you can forgive me.

An Open Letter to the French Open

Dearest French Open,


I hope you don't take anything I write in this letter personally. I don't want any hurt feelings and I want you to know that there are lots of people all over the world that love you very much and can accept you for who you are.

It's just that for me, when stacked up against all of the other Grand Slam tournaments, I don't like you all that much.

I know that might not be easy to hear, but I want you to know that it's not you, it's me.

The hardest thing for me to come to terms with is just how much your surface changes the game. Sure, I realize that there are also players whose performance fluctuates on hard courts and grass, but it's nothing compared to what you see on clay.

There are some players who are legitimate championship contenders in the three other majors that are complete non-factors at Roland Garros. On the flip side of that, there are also players that stand a chance of making a deep run only at the French.

Historically, I have been a fan of players that have fallen on the side of those that don't play particularly well on clay, so that probably doesn't help either. My favorite player of all-time, Andy Roddick, struggled famously at Roland Garros, so you can maybe understand my distaste.

The fans, generally thought of as the worst of the four majors, don't help much either. They just have the feel of a group that takes everything too seriously and they are notoriously hostile towards anyone who does anything that they feel is outside of their accepted etiquette. And who can forget when Roger Federer had to yell at them to shut up because someone had yelled out during a rally? When you see an outburst from Roger, you know someone has really done something.

I'd also like to see some night tennis. One of the fun things about the Australian and US Opens is that on occasion you will have a really, really late night session where the crowd is kind of delirious and into the match because they have just been sitting there for hours and want to see something amazing. You don't get that at Roland Garros.

Again, I realize that none of this is your fault, French Open, and that a lack of night tennis doesn't make you any different than Wimbledon, but that's just my preference.

It's not all bad, though. I know you may not want to hear it after I have just gotten done telling you about all the things I don't like about you, but there are a few things I do like.

For starters, I like that you come along at just the right time of year. In terms of really compelling tennis, the months between the Aussie Open and your tournament don't bring a lot to the table outside of a couple of Masters 1000 events and Davis Cup quarterfinals. It will be nice to see big-time, five-set tennis matches on TV again.

I may not be a fan of how your surface allows some players to become instant contenders and others to become also-rans, but I have to admit that I like that your tournament is among the most likely to give us early-round upsets of favorites. The ATP Tour has been largely devoid of those lately, so maybe a shakeup is needed.

It's probably best that we just define our relationship better, French Open. It's not that I don't want to ever see you again. You're a big part of the season and it wouldn't feel right without you. It's just that I don't want you to be disappointed or angry when I don't spent as much time or energy watching you or keeping up with you as I do the Australian Open, Wimbledon or the US Open.

The type of attention I pay to those other three is the type of attention you need and deserve and I'm not the one to give that to you.  I hope you understand.

Sincerely,

Joseph Healy