{"id":752116,"date":"2026-08-28T04:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/752116\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T04:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:16:20","slug":"american-mens-tennis-is-so-back-meet-its-next-generation-of-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/752116\/","title":{"rendered":"American Men\u2019s Tennis Is So Back. Meet Its Next Generation of Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 13, professional tennis saw something it hadn\u2019t in 23 years: two American men reached the final of a Masters 1000, the tournament tier just below a Grand Slam in terms of prestige and ranking points. It was in Montreal, where 25-year-old Brandon Nakashima met 23-year-old Ben Shelton<\/a> to battle it out for the National Bank Open title. Shelton prevailed, yet Nakashima showed serious mettle in getting there (and then did so again just a few days later by reaching the semifinals of another Masters 1000 in Cincinnati).<\/p>\n

While names like Shelton, Frances Tiafoe<\/a>, Taylor Fritz<\/a>, and Tommy Paul<\/a> have all held the spotlight in the American men\u2019s tennis scene for several years now, Nakashima represents the cohort of burgeoning stars breathing down their necks. The depth of the national field is arguably stronger than its been in decades\u2014from 20-year-old Learner Tien, who recently reached a career-high ranking of 12, to Michael Zheng, a buzzy Flushing Meadows-trained and Columbia University-honed player from Montville, New Jersey. With the US Open\u2019s main draw kicking off on Sunday, there\u2019s a real possibility of some homegrown breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the game is just evolving to a point where, you know, the guys who are coming in from the juniors and from college are able to make the transition fairly quickly,\u201d says Chris Eubanks, a retired American player and current analyst for the Tennis Channel and ESPN. \u201cThese guys are getting to the tour level and they\u2019re able to remain fairly consistent from the onset. That feels new and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prakash Amritraj, a host for the Tennis Channel, says he thinks there\u2019s \u201cdefinitely a momentum shift\u201d and that many of these men are \u201cmoving fast up the rankings.\u201d But, he cautions, \u201cthe only thing I\u2019ll say with them is that this is still new territory. They have potentially unbelievably bright futures, but it\u2019s like climbing Mount Everest. You\u2019ve got to get used to the air at the higher altitude. It\u2019s tougher to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it\u2019s often noted, it\u2019s been 23 years since an American man won a Grand Slam. Andy Roddick<\/a> was the last to do so at the 2003 US Open. In recent times, Fritz came close, reaching the US Open final in 2024. And while this \u201cSlam drought\u201d remains ongoing, Eubanks argues that the long winless stretch has \u201cno real bearing on the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, they want to win Grand Slams,\u201d Eubanks says. \u201cBut I think the \u2018drought\u2019 is far more of a media talking point than what the players are talking about.\u201d He also points out that it\u2019s not a US-specific issue; France, another country with a history of elite players, hasn\u2019t seen a male athlete win a major since 1983.<\/p>\n

Over the course of five days in Mason, Ohio\u2014a city on the outskirts of Cincinnati, where the Cincinnati Open is held\u2014we met up with Tien, Nakashima, and Zheng, along with Alex Michelsen and Zachary Svajda, to not only understand a bit more about each of their games, but also get a glimpse at their (very different) personalities. The result is a dossier of singular ascendant talent.<\/p>\n

Given how good these guys are\u2014and combined with the established likes of Shelton, Tiafoe, Fritz, and Paul\u2014the Slam drought might not be a media talking point for much longer. \u201cIt\u2019s probably as exciting a time for American men\u2019s tennis as it has been in maybe 20 years,\u201d Amritraj says.<\/p>\n

Learner Tien\"Image<\/p>\n

Grant Moxley<\/p>\n

On an astroturf-covered terrace in Mason, Learner Tien walks up in a pressed black-and-white tee, with two Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra necklaces glinting around his neck in the heat. He looks cool. At 5\u201911\u201d, Tien isn\u2019t tall by men\u2019s tennis standards, but what he lacks in span he makes up for in smart and agile play. He\u2019s a lefty with a heavy topspin forehand and a tricky slicing serve. He has an all-court sensibility\u2014really, almost a prescience\u2014when it comes to point building that can render him very, very dangerous. In Melbourne earlier this year, he reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On August 13, professional tennis saw something it hadn\u2019t in 23 years: two American men reached the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,125285,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-752116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}