The Illusion of Arrival: Why American Men Still Trail the Game’s Best

Why the gap between promise and Grand Slam glory remains wide for American men at the top of the game.

Photo by Rickmunroe01, used under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Consistency Meets a Ceiling

It wasn’t that Tommy Paul was playing poorly. It wasn’t that he gave a bad account of himself in his 3rd round match inside Arthur Ashe Stadium—a hard-fought battle against the unpredictable and gifted Alexander Bublik that stretched past 1 a.m. and ended with a warm handshake at the net.

It was that he was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. Anyone watching closely could see it.

Paul had just survived another five-setter two nights earlier against Portugal’s Nuno Borges, a capable ball-striker known for punching above his weight at majors. His final set against Bublik was his 10th set in three nights—a punishing stretch.

And had he somehow found the legs to beat Bublik, what would his reward have been? A rematch with the same man who eliminated him from last year’s U.S. Open. A man who now has four Grand Slam titles. A man who does everything Paul does—only cleaner, faster, better.

And if we’re being honest, Paul wouldn’t have stood much of a chance against Jannik Sinner two nights later, not after the toll his body had already taken. Not unless Sinner himself showed up physically compromised.

This was sad to note. It felt improper to do so, given the match’s quality and the rooting interests of the Ashe Stadium crowd that stayed late to crown a winner.

It felt a little cruel to acknowledge, especially after such a high-quality match that kept the Ashe Stadium crowd on its feet into the early hours. But that didn’t make it any less true.

Sinner would go on to dismantle Bublik in the fourth round in just 81 minutes. Had Paul advanced instead, he might’ve been dispatched even faster, due to his being plagued by abdominal and foot injuries for most of his 2025 Grand Slam season.

And it’s not as though Bublik is a pushover. Despite his lopsided loss to Sinner, the Kazakh has had the best season of his career. He defeated Sinner for the second time this past June on grass in Halle en route to the title and has added trophies at the Swiss and Austrian Opens.

When Bublik is locked in, his shot-making and unpredictability can trouble almost anyone. Paul, for all his steadiness and superior résumé, may simply have a lower peak. Consistency is his strength, but Bublik’s ceiling might be higher.

Paul has beaten Sinner just once in their careers—and that came three years ago, before the Italian had claimed a single major. Now, Sinner owns four.

His record against another ATP powerhouse, Carlos Alcaraz, isn’t much better. Paul trails their head-to-head 2-5 and hasn’t beaten Alcaraz in over two years, with both victories coming at the Canadian Masters in consecutive years.

He also hasn’t lifted a trophy of any kind in over a year. Though he’s been a consistent top-20 presence for several seasons, he has yet to replicate his career-best Grand Slam showing—a semifinal run at the 2023 Australian Open. And at the Masters 1000 level, the biggest stage outside the majors, he’s never made it past the semis either.

This isn’t a judgment on Tommy Paul’s overall quality—he’s undeniably talented. Staying in the world’s top 20 for so long requires not only skill but relentless hard work. Nor is it a comment on his grit; he was reportedly in a walking boot just four weeks ago and still battled Bublik to the very end, pushing his body as much as it would allow.

But talent has its limits. Eventually, you meet players who simply outclass you. At some point, progress plateaus, and the real question becomes whether surpassing your previous peak is even possible.

As if to pile on—though not intentionally—Tommy Paul is 28: young by most standards, but not in the unforgiving world of professional tennis. He’s at least five years older than both men currently at the top of the sport. It would be an exaggeration to say he’s running out of time, but his chances of reaching greater heights won’t improve once he crosses into the wrong side of 30.

Don’t believe me? The proof is in the pudding: only one man in Grand Slam history has ever won his first major title after turning 30. You’d have to rewind all the way back to 1972—and even the most dedicated tennis historians, outside of the late Bud Collins, would probably need to double-check their facts on Andrés Gimeno.

Moments of Magic, but Moments Only

This scarcity of late bloomers underscores that time is likely beginning to run out for Paul and his fellow top American men. Yet, if you listen to them, you’d think they’re just getting started, and it’s only a matter of time before one finally breaks through.

This mix of pressure and optimism is best exemplified by Frances Tiafoe, whose career has been marked by thrilling highs and frustrating lows

“I don’t think it’s head and shoulders by any means,” Maryland native Frances Tiafoe said, describing the gap between the top four American men and players like Sinner and Alcaraz. “I think Taylor (Fritz) can do it. I think Ben (Shelton) can do it. I think Tommy (Paul)’s in a great situation. I can do it myself. So I don’t think an American is that far away at all.”

Shelton echoed this optimism ahead of last year’s Open: “The gradual improvement of American players’ rankings over the last three or four years is proof of where we’re headed. I think it’s inevitable we’ll have a Grand Slam champion from our country. I don’t know when or who it will be.”

Top American Taylor Fritz chimed in before this year’s tournament: “The thing is, it only takes two weeks. Things just need to click for two weeks, and that’s it.”

On the surface, their confidence might be justified. Maybe they are on the cusp of a breakthrough that could end the 22-year drought for an American men’s Grand Slam champion.

But when you look at their actual results, that optimism doesn’t fully hold up. Despite flashes of brilliance, those moments remain just that—brief sparks signaling undeniable talent but not yet a consistent performance worthy of a Grand Slam winner.

More often, those flashes are followed by setbacks and underwhelming outings. It becomes wearisome to hear these four talented, likeable, and relatable players talk about how close they are to ending America’s drought while their results—both inside and outside the majors—fall short of proving they’re ready to compete at the sport’s highest level.

Take Frances Tiafoe, who never lacks confidence—in himself or in how close American men are to capturing a coveted Grand Slam title. American tennis fans have come to expect Tiafoe as a second-week presence in New York over recent years, where he’s delivered some of the National Tennis Center’s most electrifying moments. His 2022 upset over Nadal remains one of the biggest American tennis highlights in recent memory. His high energy and passionate demeanor on court suit the venue spectacularly, and he also seems to save his best for the US Open.

But those fans who primarily watch Tiafoe at the US Open—and not during the rest of the season—might be surprised by the rest of his results. Outside of New York, his performance across all tournaments, especially compared to peers ranked nearby in the ATP, has been underwhelming. Over eight years of Grand Slam appearances since his pro tour debut, he’s only reached the quarterfinals twice outside of the US Open—and never advanced further than that. One of those quarterfinals came at this year’s French Open, though clay isn’t ideally suited to his game. Digging deeper, despite making his first Grand Slam quarterfinal in Melbourne in 2019, Tiafoe has failed to reach the fourth round at the Australian Open since and has never gone beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon.

Outside of the majors, Tiafoe has reached just one Masters 1000 final—last year in Cincinnati—and has made only one other semifinal at that level in his career. Against the sport’s top two players, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, he has yet to prove he can consistently challenge them. Since beating Alcaraz in their first meeting back in Barcelona in 2021, he’s lost both of their subsequent encounters, including that unforgettable five-set semifinal at the 2022 US Open that launched the Spaniard to his first Slam title.

Against Sinner, the record is even more lopsided: 1–4. And that lone win also came in 2021—well before Sinner had reached even a Grand Slam quarterfinal, let alone the four major titles he holds now.

Tiafoe’s title drought has also quietly stretched longer than Tommy Paul’s. He hasn’t lifted a single trophy since Stuttgart in 2023, a final that came against Jan-Lennard Struff—a gritty German veteran who, while reliable, has never cracked a Grand Slam quarterfinal and has spent most of his career orbiting the fringes of the top 30. Now at age 35, Struff sits outside the top 100 and had to get through qualifying just to make this year’s US Open main draw. And yet, there he was, opposite Tiafoe again, just like in Stuttgart.

This felt like a match Tiafoe should’ve been able to handle at this stage of his career. He’s a fan favorite in New York and had the late evening Grandstand crowd behind him, one that tends to be eager to erupt with energy. Struff, in the middle of an injury-plagued season, had needed five sets to get past 11th-seeded Holger Rune of Denmark in the previous round and seemed like a clear underdog.

And yet, there was Struff, easily and summarily dismissing the American eight years his junior—silencing the crowd and leaving Tiafoe looking flat and uninspired. He served bigger, hit cleaner, and dictated play from start to finish. Even when Tiafoe managed to force a third-set tiebreak and briefly sparked hope for a comeback, it felt more like a delay than a turning point. Struff closed it out with authority, handing Tiafoe his earliest exit in New York since 2019—a massive disappointment.

Despite a solid showing in Paris earlier this year, 2025 has largely been a frustrating ride for Tiafoe.

And to make matters worse for Tiafoe, his ranking is about to take a major hit. Thanks to the ATP’s 52-week rolling ranking system, players are required to defend the points they earned at the same tournaments the previous year—or risk losing them. In Tiafoe’s case, his strong and consistent showings in New York have helped prop up his ranking, allowing him to stay near the top despite more uneven results across the rest of the calendar. But that safety net is vanishing quickly from beneath him.

He’s already lost the points he was defending from last year’s Cincinnati run, after retiring due to injury in a fourth-round match against Rune a few weeks ago. And with his early loss to Struff in Queens, he forfeits the bulk of the points he earned from reaching the semifinals last year. As a result, he’s projected to fall to the edge—or even outside—of the top 30. Unless he produces strong results at the remaining big tournaments of the year—namely the Masters 1000s in Shanghai and Paris—he’ll begin the 2026 Grand Slam season unseeded. That would make him vulnerable to drawing seeded players in the first round, a dangerous scenario for a player who hasn’t reached the fourth round at the Australian Open since 2019 and has never been beyond that stage at Wimbledon.

At age 27, like Tommy Paul, he still has time—but he’s no longer in the “young prospect” category.

And more to the point—how close is he really to winning a Grand Slam, when the only place he’s consistently dangerous is Flushing Meadows? If he’s not a regular threat to the game’s elite, and he’s slipping out of seeded territory, how can he reasonably claim that a major title is just around the corner?

Youth, Promise, and the Mountain to Climb

Shelton might feel the most aggrieved to see his name in this piece. After all, he’s younger than the other three top Americans and has already shown impressive ability well before turning 23. He’s already matched Tiafoe’s US Open Semifinals appearance and added one outside of New York —something Tiafoe can’t claim—along with two quarterfinals alongside those deep runs. Currently ranked a career-high No. 6 in the world, his recent 3rd-round retirement at the US Open due to injury against French journeyman Adrian Mannarino luckily won’t cost him any ranking points. And just before the Open, he clinched his first Masters 1000 title in Canada, another milestone Tiafoe has yet to reach.

Still, before that breakthrough north of the border, Shelton struggled with consistency outside the majors that elite players seem to have. He hadn’t made a Masters 1000 semifinal until that recent Canada win and has had trouble at Masters events on surfaces other than hard courts. Most notably, like the other Americans alongside him, Shelton faces the daunting challenge of overcoming Alcaraz and Sinner—and so far, he hasn’t shown he can scale those peaks.

Against Alcaraz, Shelton is 0-3, including a fourth-round loss at this year’s French Open. Shelton fought hard to take a set off the eventual champion, and these two will likely face off many more times. But Shelton must realize that Alcaraz isn’t going anywhere. Despite Shelton’s youth, Alcaraz is actually seven months younger and already boasts five Grand Slam titles—with the potential to add another in New York this week.

His record against Sinner is no better. Like Paul and Tiafoe, Shelton won their first meeting at the 2023 Masters 1000 in Shanghai, but he’s lost all six matches since—including straight-set defeats at this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon. The Wimbledon loss, in particular, may have been the most striking.

Sinner arguably shouldn’t have even been in that Wimbledon quarterfinal against Shelton. In his previous match, he was down two sets to love against tour favorite and stalwart Grigor Dimitrov and seemed on the brink of an upset loss—until Dimitrov injured his pectoral muscle midway through the third set and was forced to retire. This unexpected retirement handed Sinner a spot in the quarters he likely would not have earned otherwise. On top of that, Sinner himself was dealing with injury concerns, and his fitness heading into the match was uncertain.

It would be hard to imagine Shelton getting a more opportune chance to upset Sinner than this one: Sinner was less than 100% and on the grass of Wimbledon, where Shelton’s elite serve plays even bigger and lower than on other surfaces. Yet once they stepped on court, Sinner made it look effortless. Much like their Melbourne encounter five months earlier, Sinner comfortably took the first-set tiebreak and rolled through Shelton in straight sets. Shelton showed flashes of his game but had few answers against the eventual Italian champion.

And just like Alcaraz, Sinner will always be looming in the shadows for Shelton. He is only a year and 2 months older than him. As Shelton works to improve every aspect of his game, body, and mindset, Alcaraz and Sinner will be doing the exact same. The question remains: can Shelton elevate himself enough to overcome these two generational talents in best-of-five battles? He has the time, but whether he can meet this immense challenge—or if his ceiling lies just below theirs—remains to be seen.

The Closest, and Yet Still So Far

Fritz has every right to feel frustrated being lumped in here, because despite being the same age as Tiafoe, he’s established himself as the top American man with admirable consistency. He’s a threat on every surface, with a complete game capable of beating any player in the world if they are not at their best that day. Unlike the others, he broke through with a US Open Final appearance last year, a spot in the ATP Finals, a Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells in 2022, and has been steady in the top 10 rankings for the past three years.

He’s reached higher peaks and shown his capabilities, but like his American peers, Fritz has yet to prove he can win the big match against the sport’s very best. Following a familiar pattern, Fritz won their first meeting against Sinner at Indian Wells in 2021. He has yet to beat him since, losing all four of their remaining encounters.

That, of course, includes last year’s final inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. The American crowd was energized and united behind Fritz—the first American man to reach a Grand Slam singles final in 15 years. Sinner had only one Grand Slam title at that point, making him a huge test for Fritz, but not an impossible dream. Until the match began. Quickly, it became clear that these two men were on different levels. Sinner could do everything Fritz could on the court—but better. The American looked overwhelmed by both the occasion and his opponent, who was three years his junior and appeared comfortable throughout, cruising to an easy straight-sets win. The lopsided nature of the match underscored just how far Fritz had come—and how far he still needed to go to clear that final hurdle.

Against Alcaraz, Fritz’s record isn’t any better. He’s lost all three meetings, including a recent one in the Wimbledon Semifinals. What was striking about that match was how well Fritz played—he stuck to his strengths, served strongly, and made smart shot selections. But none of it mattered. His strong play earned him only a single set as Alcaraz dismissed him in four. Another tough loss, another missed opportunity—as Fritz improves and edges closer to the dreaded age of 30.

A Cautionary Tale of Near Misses

If the American men want a reminder of how quickly careers and signature moments can slip away in this cruel and sometimes lonely sport, they need look no further than Taylor Townsend. After years of building her game and steadily improving her results, Townsend was poised to seize her signature tennis moment at this very US Open. That is, until she wasn’t.

She’d already knocked off former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in a match that included a post-match spat that had the entire crowd at Corona Park buzzing. Townsend is in fact still alive in the women’s doubles draw as part of the number one seeds, but she is still lamenting what could’ve been for her in singles. She was one point away from her first-ever Grand Slam singles quarterfinal at age 29. And then, in heartbreaking fashion, she blew eight match points in a marathon 25-minute second-set tiebreak against two-time Grand Slam champion Barbora Krejcikova. Krejcikova somehow rallied to win the tiebreak 15-13 and then took control to win the third set.

Afterward, Townsend knew, without a doubt, she had just missed her best shot at a Grand Slam singles title. And perhaps worse, she had squandered a moment where the entirety of the USTA National Tennis Center seemed to be on her side and talking about her positively. Tears fell onto the hard, unforgiving Louis Armstrong Stadium pavement as she sat courtside post-match. However, Townsend, with perspective from a career of grinding to get to this point, seemed to understand both the magnitude of the opportunity she had missed and the reality that she had no choice but to move forward

Townsend confirmed that the loss was probably the most difficult of her career: “Just because, you know, I was so close. And it’s literally like a point here and there—quite literally—that made the difference,” she said at the podium.

“It just stings because I literally gave everything. But, you know, it’s part of sports. This is just motivating me to keep doing the things that I know I can do to be a champion. And that’s the cool thing about tennis—it doesn’t matter what happened the day before. If you’ve got another match, you’ve got to turn around, get back on the saddle, and keep going.”

Townsend, as she said, knows she has to keep going. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand the magnitude of the chance she just let slip through her fingers. Another opportunity to validate her career with a great singles run—maybe even a title—might come again. It also might not. And if it doesn’t, she’ll remember this loss, and this missed opportunity, when it’s all said and done.

The Distance Between Hope and Reality

Anyone can go on a run at a Grand Slam — but a run is just a moment in time. A title is forever. All it takes to derail a run is one bad matchup or the wrong opponent on the wrong day. American tennis fans will remember Fritz’s run to the men’s final last year, but that alone won’t immortalize him. The question becomes, for Fritz, Shelton, Paul, and Tiafoe: do they want to be remembered for great moments—or do they want to be remembered as champions?

Last night, in the US Open Quarterfinals, on Ashe Stadium, Fritz squared off with Novak Djokovic, perhaps the greatest player in the history of the sport. Even with his berth in the Final last year, this was in some eyes the most important tennis match of Taylor Fritz’s career. The odds were against him. Firmly.

Fritz had lost all 10 of their prior meetings, including all three at majors. Now, he had a chance to both edge the 38-year-old Djokovic closer to retirement and firmly stamp himself as a force to be reckoned with against anyone. If Fritz couldn’t beat him now, he likely isn’t getting another chance.

And he couldn’t do it. Instead, he may’ve solidified that Djokovic should not retire and that he is still among the truly elite of this game.

Fritz seemed hyper-aware of the moment — too aware. He was still inside of his own head, making mistakes a player at his age with his lofty ranking should not be making after 10 previous meetings with Djokovic. In the key moments that separate contenders from champions, the same pattern reemerged: Fritz blinked. He converted just 2 of 13 break points. He had Djokovic stretched, had chances to flip the match on its axis, and couldn’t deliver.

And when he finally did grab a huge break to even the second set, he gave it right back to Djokovic immediately and lost the set right after. Fritz was now down two sets to love to a man who has only lost one time in his Grand Slam history when playing with such a lead.

Djokovic played with the confidence of a man who knew, as Fritz did too, that he was the mentally superior player with more big match experience, and that would show out in the end. Fritz battled back gallantly to win the third set and was dead even with Djokovic in the fourth. He saved two match points on his own serve and seemed poised to push a slightly fatigued Djokovic to five sets.

And then, on a third match point for the Serbian, Fritz hit his second serve long to anticlimactically end the match. Djokovic moves on to the Semifinals, a stage he’s managed to reach at every major this season at age 38. Fritz, now 0-11 against the 24-time Grand Slam champion, reached the Semifinals only at Wimbledon this year. Otherwise, he performed worse at every major this year than he did last year.

After the match, Fritz was forthright in his perspective—clearly frustrated that he hadn’t played his best, and fully aware that yet another Grand Slam opportunity had slipped away from him.

Referring to his inability to convert break points, Fritz didn’t sugarcoat the reality. “The fact that I was 0-for-10? That’s putting it nicely,” he admitted. “I had so many chances that you’re not going to see on the statline, because I was in points at 0-30, 15-30, 30-all, and just played those points really poorly.”

He acknowledged that his decision-making under pressure continues to be an issue: “It was just bad decision making because I wasn’t playing as well as I wanted to. So it gets a little tough in those pressure situations to know what I want to do if it’s not really working for me.”

Still, there was no hint of denial—only clear-eyed frustration. “Realistically, I just can’t come out of those first two sets down two sets to love. I need to play better,” he said. “That’s the thing that’s frustrating—that I don’t need to play that much better to make it happen. But at the end of the day, that’s one of the things that makes the great players great: they win the big points. It was tough for me to go out and take those points.”

Fritz may have the game to go toe-to-toe with the greats — he’s shown it in flashes. But flashes don’t win majors. And if, at 27, those flashes still don’t string together into a breakthrough, one wonders if they ever will.

And despite all of this, a keen fan realized that even if Fritz somehow finished off the epic comeback, it would’ve been a very meaningful victory in his career without doubt, but just like the previously compromised Tommy Paul, it likely still would’ve spelt his eventual doom. Fritz similarly was damned if he did win and damned if he didn’t. He was in a no-win scenario playing out in real time.

Because who now awaits Djokovic in the semifinals? Carlos Alcaraz. And in the Final afterward if he were to beat Carlitos? In all likelihood, Jannik Sinner.

Contrary to their public bravado, none of these American men, Fritz included, should act like finally ending this drought will be easy. Or that they’re nearly at a finish line that still, at some level, looks far off in the distance.

That chasm between hope and reality in men's tennis right now is one that the entire men’s game, not just the top Americans, are trying their hardest to bridge. They push themselves to the edge, but the summit keeps receding. And even when they rise, the next mountain is already casting its enormous shadow.