By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON (Reuters) -With Madison Keys and Coco Gauff raising hopes that they could complete an “American slam” of the majors this year, their male counterparts at Wimbledon can only look on enviously.
Keys ended her long wait to get her hands on a Grand Slam trophy at the Australian Open this year and when Gauff triumphed at the French Open earlier this month it seemed like there was no stopping the Americans – in the women’s draw at least.
Unfortunately for the men, Andy Roddick’s U.S. Open victory in 2003 remains a painful reminder — year after year — of how long it has been since an American man picked up a singles trophy at one of the four majors.
The singles draw at Wimbledon is populated with 45 Americans — 19 in the women’s and 16 in the men’s — which is almost double that of any other country.
Some of the players in action this year at Wimbledon, such as Learner Tien and Alex Michelsen, were not even born when Roddick was the toast of Flushing Meadows.
This year, the leader of the men’s pack was supposed to be fifth seed Taylor Fritz, who came into the tournament riding high on confidence after winning his fourth Eastbourne title two days ago.
In fact, in the Wimbledon men’s field, he owns the second highest number of grasscourt titles – his haul of five only behind seven-times Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic.
But on Monday he came within two points of going out in the first round before hanging tough to win the fourth set tiebreak and leave the match deadlocked at two sets all when play was suspended for the night, 45 minutes before the 11pm curfew.
Fritz’s day summed up the plight faced by American men.
He seemed to be on the verge of becoming the highest-seeded casualty even though he never got broken and had set points in the first two sets which Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard won 7-6(6) 7-6(8) before the American won the next two 6-4 7-6(8).
Should he survive Tuesday’s final set shootout, he will join 12th seed Frances Tiafoe, Tien, Jenson Brooksby and Ethan Quinn in the second round.
Americans Brandon Holt, Mackenzie McDonald, and Nishesh Basavareddy all lost on the hottest opening day recorded at Wimbledon, with temperatures soaring above 32 degrees Celsius, while eight others will be in action on Tuesday.
AMERICAN QUARTET
While Fritz was lucky to play in a cool temperature-controlled environment thanks to the Court One roof being closed before his match started, Keys was among many players who had to toil under the blazing sun.
Britain’s heatwave, however, failed to throw her off stride as she led a quartet of American women into round two with a 6-7(4) 7-5 7-5 win over Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
Amanda Anisimova was even more impressive as she delivered the dreaded 6-0 6-0 double bagel to Yulia Putintseva. Ann Li and Ashlyn Krueger also won, while Gauff is in action on Tuesday.
With American women having won 25 Grand Slam titles since Roddick lifted the U.S. Open trophy 22 years ago — with Venus and Serena Williams accounting for 19 of them — Keys had one message for her male counterparts – “Keep up”.
“I feel like the American women have been probably inspiring the men for a while. I can’t really think of a time the past 20 years where U.S. women weren’t doing incredibly well,” she said.
“Granted, we had the Williams sisters for a long time leading that charge. There were also a lot of great American women constantly in the top 20, 10, 30.
“I think the men are inspired and they want to try to keep up.”
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Ken Ferris)
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