RE: [Blog] American Men's Tennis and the Cycle of Ages
I finally had time to read these blogs. Thanks for writing them, El Dude!
The globalization of tennis has affected to US success, there's a larger pool of players on the tour, so it's harder for the Americans.
Also the slowed-down surfaces have hurt them. While the slower surfaces suit perfectly to the excellent Spanish claycourters, US guys' best surface is usually fast hardcourt, which is quite rare a surface on the tour these days. But even on faster courts, USA wouldn't currently have a real GS title contender, like Rafa for Spain. But otherwise they could equal Spain's success if the courts were faster.
Anyway, I was thinking about one thing. Europe has just over twice the US population but I think there are European top-100 players more than twice the number of US top-100 players. A European country's #3 junior might not be a top-10 junior in the USA. Could that be an advantage for Europeans? I think a European country's #3 junior may get more and better coaching from the national federation than US #13 junior. Also, it's mentally different to be your country's #3 junior than #13. My point is that European countries #3-5 juniors may be training more seriously than equally good American juniors outside the US top-10. Those guys aren't maybe future GS champs but can be future top-100 guys.