Andy Roddick is an anomaly.
More specifically, his men's singles championship at the 2003 U.S. Open is an anomaly because, honestly, it's never going to happen again.
With Americans John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi having combined to win 16 U.S. Open titles since 1974, it's clear that we're not as bad on our home turf as the Brits are at Wimbledon: No British man has won there since Fred Perry in 1936 and Virginia Wade in '77 was the last woman. But today, in a tennis world dominated by Europeans and South Americans, it doesn't look like an American will win in Flushing Meadows any time soon.
Roddick won the U.S. Open before Roger Federer had reached his prime (or was even close to his prime) and when Rafael Nadal was barely out of diapers. He won before his opponents had fully realized the glaring flaws in his game: a mediocre backhand, subpar return game and poor mid-point decision-making, qualities that make it extra difficult for the hard-serving Nebraskan to regularly break serve.
Since the high point of Roddick's career in 2003, the top players in the world have learned the simple truth about how to beat him: break his serve.
This is not an easy task by any means -— Roddick's mammoth serve has carried him to great success — but aces have yet to help win him another Grand Slam title. Granted, it gets him close: Since 2003, Roddick has appeared in one other U.S. Open final and three Wimbledon finals (he lost to Federer in all four), including one of the most phenomenal Grand Slam finals in recent memory when Federer ousted Roddick at Wimbledon 16-14 in the fifth set in 2009. But even as he pushed the greatest player of our generation to the brink, Roddick never broke Federer's serve.
Will Roddick ever triumph again? It's unlikely.
In this year's Open, the No. 9 seed Roddick lost in the second round to an unseeded Janko Tipsarevic. Roddick has played well this year but has by no means upped his lofty standards; he's suffered losses in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, third round at the French Open and fourth round at Wimbledon.
It's safe to assume that the 28-year-old Roddick's stock is swiftly dropping at this point, but who is the next American who will take the reins? Candidates include John Isner, who lost in the third round at the U.S. Open but can always take solace in being the winner of the longest professional tennis match ever played at this year's Wimbledon, when he beat Nicolas Mahut in an 11-hour thriller.
Despite his newfound fame as a result of the marathon match, Isner is probably not the best chance the Americans have at regaining the U.S. Open title. Like Roddick, Isner's strongpoint is his powerful serve, which comes as a result of the ridiculous angles he can find with his 6-foot-9 frame. But like Roddick, Isner has inconsistent ground strokes.
Sam Querrey, on the other hand, looks like the future of American tennis. At 22 years old, Querrey, who is currently sitting pretty in the fourth round of the U.S Open as the furthest-progressed American this year, has his entire career ahead of him. Earlier this year, Querrey lost in the first round of both the Australian and French Opens. But his youth is a blessing — if he can continue to harvest his game, he certainly has the potential to win at least one Slam in his career.
After Querrey is 28-year-old Mardy Fish, who has been playing professionally since 2000 but has made it to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam only twice in 29 events.
There are some promising stars on the horizon for men's tennis in the States, but in the past 10 years, these stars have yet to shine in the way that their role models — guys like McEnroe and Connors — once did. Perhaps 18-year-old Ryan Harrison, who made it to the second round of this year's U.S. Open in his first-ever appearance at a major, could someday take American tennis back to Grand Slam glory.
Harrison reminds many tennis fans of a young Andy Roddick; after this week, however, maybe the budding star should find a new role model.
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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the score of the fifth set of the 2009 Wimbledon final between Andy Roddick and Roger Federer. In fact, it was 16-14.
