For American men’s tennis, this is as bad as it has ever been

It is still almost impossible to comprehend the notion of American men being irrelevant during the second week at a major, but it has been a fact for 11 years and counting. This is the country that produced Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitis, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang. All were major champions — and all but Gerulaitis and Chang were multiple major champions, led by Sampras, who won 14.