American Shame

As we write this post, American James Blake is losing his second round match at the 2010 U.S. Open in New York. And no surprise, he just finished a bratty, whining tirade against the match umpire over a questionable call. This comes on the heels of a match last night in which Blake's fellow American, Andy Roddick, was defeated in his second round match, and Roddick also blew up at a lineswoman over a foot fault call. Roddick berated the woman incessantly for over thirty minutes, sounding like a spoiled petulant child who didn't get his way. Oh, and by the way, on a review of the video, Roddick did, indeed, commit a foot fault.

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(james blake and andy roddick, no doubt discussing how

to best blame their failures on the linespeople)

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When, oh when, will the long, embarrassing national nightmare of the Roddick/Blake/Fish era of American tennis finally come to a long-overdue end? These American men will go down in sports history as the biggest underachievers in the history of the sport of tennis for America. The only talent they seem to have is behaving as overindulged, pampered children.

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Just to show how far American men's tennis has fallen, consider these statistics. During the Open Era of tennis, first for the Americans came the Ashe/Smith era, during which American men won 5 Grand Slam titles. Next came the McEnroe/Connors era in which American men won 18 Grand Slam titles. Next up was the Sampras/Agassi/Courier/Chang era in which American racked up a stunning 26 Grand Slam titles. But for the past few years, we've been mired in the very sad, disappointing era of Roddick/Blake/Fish/Ginepri/Dent, etc., who have all combined for a grand total of 1 Grand Slam title, (Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003).

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So please, Andy Roddick and James Blake, stop crying like babies, and just go away.