The United States were a tennis superpower for decades: 31 Davis Cups by 2000, with iconic champions such as Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras emerging one after another. For some years now, though, the trend has changed: American players have not won a Grand Slam since 2003. There are several reasons for the drought, starting with the dominance of the Big Three, followed by the retirements of Sampras and Agassi and, finally, the beginning of the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly. With Sinner missing New York through injury, Djokovic out in the first round and Alcaraz playing his first tournament after 138 days away, the 2026 US Open could represent a major opportunity for American tennis to break the spell. The United States have been without a true champion capable of competing consistently at every Slam for some time, but in the meantime the overall level of American players has risen considerably. The numbers make that clear: on the eve of the tournament at Flushing Meadows, 14 Americans were inside the ATP Top 100, five of them in the top 20. Six of those players were under 24, including 20-year-old Tien and 23-year-old Shelton, while only one was over 30, Marcos Giron at No. 78.
The United States have therefore returned to being a country that produces good, even very good, tennis players, but the change did not happen overnight. It began roughly 20 years ago, when the USTA (United States Tennis Association) changed the way it managed national tournaments, creating a five-tier pyramid: at the bottom were the Junior Championships, followed by the Futures, with prize money ranging from $10,000 to $25,000, then the Challengers, between $50,000 and $100,000, followed by ATP tournaments and, finally, the US Open. This structure meant that local players no longer had to travel to Europe to compete at the highest levels, but could stay in the United States and play at home without losing competitiveness – a strategy similar to the one adopted by the Italian federation at the beginning of Angelo Binaghi’s presidency.
American players have two main routes to the highest level: turning professional at a young age, or going to college and entering the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), the organisation that oversees university sport. In the 1990s, the best young players generally preferred to turn professional straight away. Today, the balance has shifted, also because NCAA tournaments have begun attracting large numbers of players from other continents. Around 61 per cent of Division I tennis players – American colleges are divided into Division I, Division II and Division III according to size – are foreign, and Valentin Vacherot, currently No. 23 in the ATP rankings and a former Texas A&M player, is a significant example. This international mix has raised the level of the tournaments and, with it, the competition, attracting several promising players born and raised in the United States: from Ethan Quinn to Brandon Nakashima and Ben Shelton, many have come through the NCAA. College also allows tennis players to develop technically and physically without having to confront professional tennis too early, or the relentless demands placed on players on the ATP Tour.
“College tennis is attracting a lot more talented players. It used to be that if you went to college, people would say your career was over, now it’s seen as a launching pad,” Shelton said after winning his first-round match at the last Australian Open. “When you’re a college player,” he added, “you have to think about how to be a better teammate, because I guarantee you, if you go into a college team thinking everything revolves around you, life is not going to be fun and the guys on the team aren’t going to appreciate you.”
This does not mean, however, that every player in the new American wave chooses the college route: some still enter the professional circuit directly, through either the junior or senior ranks, convinced they can compete from the start. Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz are the clearest examples, currently ranked No. 12 and No. 10 in the world. The diversification of these paths and the growth of college tennis have had a positive effect: several talents with two different routes into the game, a system that works and a steady stream of players inside the Top 100. An outright superstar is still missing, but that is not something you can programme.