The Last American Hero?

I was reading through Tennis Australia's little Off the Court article that they put out every week (it was very short - clearly they aren't the only ones struggling for something to write about!) and something struck me. There was a story about John McEnroe thinking about retiring from Blackrock after losing so badly in London, and then a story about Pete Sampras saying that there are dark times for American tennis ahead.

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These guys are two of the major figureheads of the US tennis pantheon, yeah? And they are so incredibly different. McEnroe is all racquet-smashing and fire and temper and swearing, whereas Sampras is more gentleman-like -not quite to the epic standards of Federer, but still. He could be accused of being boring sometimes. And yet they're both still beloved - and, I might venture to say, probably disliked by equal amounts of people.

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And now we come to the point - what does US tennis have now?

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Andy Roddick, who probably drew more attention from his engagement to Brooklyn Decker than from his tennis this year, and James Blake, who was a bit of a non-event this year, apart from at the Olympics. Then I suppose there's Fish and Querrey and all that crew, but there is no real American tennis god right now, no McEnroe, no Connors, no Sampras, no Agassi. I guess Australia isn't the only place seemingly in a tennis recession. And Sampras seems to think there are dark times ahead for America - no one coming up, no one coming through. (I still pray at the altar of Tomic for the sake of Australian tennis every day. Go Bernard - though not with your little temper tantrums, please.)

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Tennis is almost wholly European at the moment. Look at the top - a Spanish guy, a Swiss guy, a Serbian guy, a British guy. Europe's got the monopoly on the top. Not that I'm complaining - there's nothing wrong with it. But how on earth did we go so quickly from a USA-USA duopoly in Agassi and Sampras to a Hispano-Suisse one?