For the first time since the ATP Tour began its ranking system in 1973, there are no American men ranked in the Top 30 in the world.
In the rankings released Monday, Taylor Fritz was the highest-ranked American at No. 31 in the world, followed by John Isner at 34, Reilly Opelka at 47 and Tommy Paul at 55. Tennys Sandgren, Sam Querrey and Sebastian Korda are ranked Nos. 65, 66 and 67, respectively. Frances Tiafoe is No. 74.
Canada, by contrast, has three players in the Top 30: No. 14 Denis Shapovalov, No. 20 Milos Raonic and No. 21 Felix Auger-Aliassime
The top nine men in the world — led by No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia, No. 2 Daniil Medvedev of Russia and No. 3 Rafael Nadal of Spain — are all Europeans, while No. 10 Diego Schwartzman hails from Argentina.
“I mean, it’s very concerning,” Martin Blackman, General Manager of USTA Player Development, said in a phone interview. “Our goals are really, really high. Our goals are always Top 10, always Grand Slam champions, even though it’s been since 2003.”
Since the rankings began in 1973, numerous American men have reached No. 1 in the world, including Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Andy Roddick, who was No. 1 for 13 weeks from Nov. 30, 2003, to Feb. 1, 2004.
Roddick in 2003 was the last American man to win a Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open. He also lost three Wimbledon finals to Roger Federer, most recently in 2009.
After Djokovic’s win at the Australian Open, European men have won 65 of the last 66 Grand Slam titles. The “Big 3” of Federer (20), Nadal (20) and Djokovic (18) have combined to win 58 major titles since Federer won the group’s first at the 2003 Wimbledon.
Blackman said that, based on a live ranking app, Isner “is going to be ranked 27 at the end of the week and Taylor [Fritz] is going to be ranked 30.”
“The most optimistic piece of it is looking at Taylor, looking at Sebastian Korda, looking at Tommy, looking at Reilly, and even though Frances has lost a lot of close matches in the first half of the year, looking at his improvement, and really focusing on helping those guys to maximize their potential,” said Blackman, who compiled a 3-14 record in singles on the ATP Tour and reached a high ranking of No. 158 in the world.”
“We always knew that Sam and John were going to age out at some point, and they both had great careers,” Blackman added of Querrey (33) and Isner (36). “But I don’t think we’ve ever had that many guys under 25 that have that kind of upside.”
Of these players, Korda, the 6-foot-5 20-year-old son of former world No. 2 Petr Korda, may have the biggest upside.
“I think Korda’s the real deal,” ESPN’s Pam Shriver said this week on Patrick McEnroe’s “Holding Court” Podcast.
Blackman pointed to the coaches working with Fritz, Opelka, Paul and Tiafoe as evidence that they can get better.
“Reilly’s in a great position with a coach like Jay Berger, who’s coach at the highest level,” he said. “Tommy Paul’s with Brad Stine who supported José Higueras in coaching Jim Courier, a Grand Slam champion. Frances is with Wayne Ferreira, a Top 10 player. And Taylor’s with David Nainkin, one of our national team coaches and Paul Annacone.
“So those are the things you can control, is are guys maximizing, are they working hard, do they have good teams around them. And then you gotta just let the process take care of itself and just work your butt off.”
(The AP contributed reporting.)
