THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
In 2003, a 21-year-old from Omaha, Nebraska named Andy Roddick burst onto the international tennis scene, reaching the final on the fabled grass at Wimbledon before walking off the hardcourt at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows in New York City with the US Open trophy in his hands. By the end of the year, he was the No. 1 ranked men’s tennis player in the world.
Coming from a rich tradition of American tennis titans, including the aforementioned Ashe in the 1970s, to Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe in the ‘80s, and on to Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in the ‘90s, the torch had been passed to Roddick, so it seemed.
But a couple of other young bucks named Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal had other ideas. Their stars ascended, while Roddick’s never quite reached the vaunted heights of the tennis world occupied by his US predecessors. He reached the finals at Wimbledon in 2004, 2005 and 2009, and the US Open in 2006, but in the end, Federer always seemed to have his number, winning 21 of 24 matches overall between the two, including all four of those four Grand Slam finals. There hasn’t been a serious assault on the upper echelons of Men’s tennis from an American player since.
The US Women have a similar history of tennis royalty, going back to Billie Jean King, then Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (once she’d defected to the US from Czechoslovakia). But that torch was firmly picked up by Serena Williams, the greatest of them all, who went on to win an unmatched 23 Grand Slam titles.
Since Serena’s retirement, however, American tennis has lacked a standard bearer on either the Men’s or Women’s tours. And while no clear heir-apparent has yet stepped forward, there is a whiff of a tennis renaissance on the winds blowing across the lower 48 states, in sheer numbers if not necessarily title dominance.
This time a year ago, heading into the 2024 US Open, Americans made up five of the Top 20 players on both the men’s and women’s rankings for the first time since 1996.
The list back in ’96 read like this: No. 1 Pete Sampras, No. 2 Michael Chang, No. 9 Andre Agassi, No. 12 MaliVai Washington, No. 13 Todd Martin and No. 15 Jim Courier on the men’s side, while No. 1 Monica Seles, No. 6 Lindsay Davenport, No. 9 Mary Joe Fernández, No. 13 Chanda Rubin and No. 20 Meredith McGrath featured in the WTA's Top 20.
Heading into this year’s American leg of tennis’ four Grand Slam tournaments, the final of the year, there are nine American players with rankings in the Top 20 who will compete for the title at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in the Flushing Meadows neighborhood of Queens in New York City.
First played as the US National Championships in 1881, it will mark the 145th consecutive edition of the venerable tennis showcase. It is, as a matter of fact, the only Grand Slam that had no cancellations due to World Wars I or II, or interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The players will be competing for a record $85 million in prize money, the most of any tennis tournament in history. For context, the losing men’s and women’s finalists will receive $2.5 million, more than this year’s winners in the Australian Open.
The winners will receive a cool $5 million each, and the world’s two top-ranked players will be defending their 2024 US Open crowns. Italy’s Jannick Sinner has emerged as the top Men’s player in the world, winning the 2024 and 2025 Australian Opens, and this year’s Wimbledon title, in addition to last year’s success in New York.
On the Women’s side, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka has three Grand Slam titles under her belt, but none since her victory in Flushing Meadows last year.
But what about those American players? Well, let’s take a look.
Fritz cracked the top five at the end of last year, becoming the first American men’s player to do so since James Blake in 2006. He reached his first Grand Slam final in last year’s US Open, losing to Sinner in three sets. The 27-year-old from California has a tennis pedigree, as his mother Kathy May was ranked among the top 10 players in the world rankings in the late ‘70s. He turned pro in 2015, and broke into the top-25 in the rankings in 2019.
His big breakthrough came in 2022, when he beat Rafael Nadal in the final at Indian Wells to claim his first Masters 1000 title, becoming the first American to win there since Andre Agassi in 2001. After reaching the US Open final last year, he lost in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and shockingly crashed out of the French Open in the opening round before bouncing back to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon in July 2025.
With over $25 million in career earnings, Fritz has been a mainstay in the upper echelons of the tennis world for the past few years and has knocked on the door of a Grand Slam title. Time will tell if he can bang the door down.
While Fritz has been plugging away and working his way up the rankings over the past 10 years or so, 22-year-old Shelton has burst on the scene with all guns blazing. The left-hander guided the University of Florida to their first team national championship in 2022 and promptly took his blistering 150mph serve pro.
He won his first ATP title the following year in the Japan Open, and then reached the semifinals of the US Open later that year. This year he has continued to make his presence in the tennis world felt with a semifinal appearance in the Australian Open, and his first Masters 1000 title at the Canadian Open in early August.
When he cracks the Top 5, as he seems destined to do, it could mark the first time two Americans have scaled those lofty heights since Roddick and Agassi did it in November of 2005. He’ll also become the first lefty American in the Top 5 since John McEnroe was No. 5 in 1990.
Even with his booming serve, brash confidence on the court, dynamic athleticism and 30-12 record in his first 12 Grand Slam appearances, we might not have seen his best yet. I’m guessing it’s just a matter of time until Shelton bags a Grand Slam title.
While Fritz and Shelton came from tennis backgrounds, 27-year-old Tiafoe worked his way up from more humble beginnings, playing tennis in the club where his father worked as a janitor in Hyattsville, Maryland, sometimes sleeping in a storage unit attached to the center. As a black man and son of immigrant parents, Tiafoe has defied monumental odds to climb to the upper echelons of a predominantly white sport.
While his performance on the court has been up and down over the past few years, he was a finalist in the 2024 Cincinnati Open and reached the quarterfinals of this year’s French Open. Few players on the tour are more inspiring or likable than Tiafoe, and he is always a threat to make a run in big tournaments.
28-year-old Tommy Paul hails from New Jersey, and while he may not be as flashy as some of the others on this list, he has been a model of consistency and stability, meticulously honing his craft since turning pro back in 2015. He has managed to reach No. 10 in the rankings this year, with quarterfinal appearances in both the Australian and French Opens.
While the current US Men are still chasing a Grand Slam title, Cori Dionne "Coco" Gauff already has two on her mantle. Gauff turned professional in 2018 when she was just 14 and quickly introduced herself to the tennis world by defeating Venus Williams at Wimbledon as a qualifier when she was 15 years old. In 2023 she captured the US Open title in three sets over Aryna Sabalenka. In this year’s French Open she again faced Sabalenka and again lost the first set, before prevailing 6–7(5), 6–2, 6–4.
Gauff was born in Atlanta in 2004, and became a tennis prodigy by the time she was seven, when her family moved to Florida to give her better opportunities to hone her skills. While tennis was her first love, she also gave gymnastics, soccer, track, dance, cheerleading, and basketball a try, which served to nurture her athletic versatility.
When she was 10, she began training at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France (founded by Serena's longtime coach, Patrick Mouratoglou), and that same year became the youngest ever champion of the USTA Clay Court National 12-and-under title.
Whether she will be able to reach the levels of dominance of her idol Serena Williams remains to be seen, but she has already surpassed Serena in WTA 1000 quarterfinal appearances before age 22. You might say the future looks bright…
While Gauff may be the heir apparent, Pegula is the veritable grande dame of American tennis at 31 years old, having turned pro at age 15 back in 2009. While she has not yet tasted the glory of a Grand Slam title, she has reached the quarterfinal stages seven times in her career, and made it to the semifinals of last year’s US Open. She also has nine singles titles, including three WTA 1000 titles, the most recent of which was the 2024 Canadian Open.
While Pegula crashed out of Wimbledon this year in shocking fashion, losing to an unranked opponent in just 58 minutes, she has bagged three wins in 2025 (Charleston Open, Bad Homburg Open and the ATX Open) to maintain her top-5 ranking.
Pegula has an interesting family background, as her parents, Terry and Kim Pegula own the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres NFL and NHL teams, and have a net worth of over $7.5 billion. Off the court Jessica teamed up with her husband Taylor Gahagen to start the skincare brand Ready 24 in 2018, where he's vice president, and they also founded A Lending Paw, a charity that trains rescue dogs to become service animals.
While Pegula has dropped hints that she doesn’t want to extend her career beyond her mid-30s, there would still seem to be a deep run or two left in the tank.
Similar to Pegula, the 30-year-old Keys has been a pro for a decade and a half. She reached a major career milestone earlier this year by defeating the top-seeded Sabalenka in the final of the Australian Open in three sets to claim the first Grand Slam title of her career, defeating the top two players in the world to do it.
It marked the 46th Grand Slam appearance of her career, and banished the demons of heartbreaking defeats in the US Open 2017 final and 2023 semifinal, where she crushingly gave up a one-set lead.
After growing up a child tennis prodigy in Illinois and Florida, Keys admitted that the weight of expectations got to her over the years, and has openly credited therapy for helping her overcome the doubts and pressures of sky-high expectations.
After nearly falling out of the top-20 in the rankings, Keys seems to have found her fountain of youth this year after marrying her coach Bjorn Fratangelo at the end of 2024. Coincidence? Who knows, but there seems to be some good tennis left for the veteran.
In the late 1990s Anisimova’s parents emigrated from Russia to the US, in part to give her older sister, Maria, a better shot at developing into a professional tennis player. But it was Amanda, who was born in 2001 in New Jersey, who would end up being the real prodigy.
Success came early and often, and after reaching No. 2 on the amateur circuit, Amanda marched into the semifinals of the French Open in 2019 at the tender age of 17, just a year after she turned pro.
But by 2022, the stresses of the professional tennis lifestyle were piling up, and Anisimova made the decision to step away from the sport. She took holidays, took up painting, spent time with family and friends, and even attended a semester at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University.
The reset seems to have done the trick, as she reached the finals of last year’s Canadian Open soon after returning to the saddle. This year she won her first WTA 1000 title at the Qatar Open, and then knocked off the top-seeded Sebalenka en route to the Finals at Wimbledon, where she lost to Iga Świątek in straight sets. Could another deep run in the US Open be on the cards?
The wealth of US women’s tennis power continues with 23-year-old Navarro, who in the span of roughly a year and a half went from 121 in the world rankings all the way to the Top-10.
Navarro, who was born in New York and raised in Charleston, North Carolina, also has a billionaire father, who happens to own professional tournaments in Charleston and Cincinnati. She initially opted to forego the professional circuit to play collegiately at the University of Virginia. But when she took the NCAA singles crown as a freshman, she decided to change tack and turn pro.
Success followed quickly, with her first pro title coming in 2024 at the Hobart International, then a quarterfinal run at Wimbledon followed by a semifinal appearance at the US Open the same year. This year she has a title at the Mérida Open and quarterfinal showing at the Australian Open under her belt.
Navarro’s tactical game, composure under pressure and meteoric rise have many in the tennis world wondering just how high she can go.
There is definitely a lot to like about American tennis these days, with a plethora of talented veterans and newcomers alike on display throughout the WTA and ATP tour events. And they will all be on display looking to make waves at the US Open between August 24 and September 7 in New York City. Is this the first year Americans could take both the Men’s and Women’s Grand Slam titles on home soil since Andre Agassi and Serena Williams did so back in 1999? Time will tell.
