American Men May Be About To Dominate World Tennis Again
<....> This new group of American boys is really good. Americans hold the top spot and three of the next five places in the boys junior rankings. Americans have won four of the last six junior Grand Slam titles.1 And just as Sampras and Agassi used to regularly play each other in big finals, this year’s U.S. Open featured an all-American boys’ final in which Taylor Fritz defeated Tommy Paul, 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-2.
Brad Gilbert, coach and commentator for FiveThirtyEight parent ESPN, described the juniors for me: Fritz has “the most weapons by far of all of them,” Frances Tiafoe and Michael Mmoh are the athletic ones, and Reilly Opelka is tall — 6 feet 11 inches tall. Paul is that rarity in American tennis: a clay specialist. He won the French Open juniors title this year.
The last time American juniors came anywhere close to this type of success was from 2003 to 2005, when they had seven top-5 players over three years. But among those seven top young Americans, only Donald Young made the top 50 when he was a pro, peaking at No. 39 in 2011.2
Martin Blackman, head of player development for the U.S. Tennis Association, believes today’s American juniors are better prepared for future success. Referring to the group from a decade ago, Blackman said: “What those guys didn’t have, that we have now, is a team of coaches and a system that’s ready and waiting for them to give them whatever they need.” <...>
FiveThirtyEight
I'd be happy with ONE player in the top 4 and maybe 2 in the top 10. But I am dubious about, for example, a 6'11" player who will probably be another Isner--big serve, big, inconsistent forehand, nothing backhand, bad court movement/match IQ. But I rarely watch juniors tennis, so my fears may be wholly unfounded.
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