As we enter the second week of Wimbledon, U.S. tennis finds itself in a curious position.
On the one hand, America is in a historic trough — currently in its longest ever drought without a grand-slam title for the men and women combined. A total of 12 without one (Wimbledon would make it 13), beating the previous worst of 11 between 1963 and 1966, which was before tennis turned professional with the advent of the Open Era two years later.
In terms of just the Open Era, the previous record for the U.S. is a winless run of eight between 2017 and 2020.
America’s most recent slam success came at the end of that run, when Sofia Kenin won the Australian Open in 2020, and since then the nation’s torchbearers for so long, the Williams sisters, have either retired — Serena did last year although she left the door slightly ajar for a return — or, in the case of Venus (43), are expected to soon.
On the men’s side, America is in comfortably its longest ever grand-slam drought, which goes back 20 years to Andy Roddick winning the 2003 US Open. That’s a run of 77 tournaments, smashing the previous worst of 20 between 1963 and 1968. You have to go back to Pete Sampras in 2000 for the last American man to win Wimbledon.
And that 0/77 figure comes straight off the back of an…
