{"id":2567,"date":"2018-04-09T16:47:58","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T16:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2018-04-09T16:47:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T16:47:58","slug":"houston-and-the-swarm-of-american-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/09\/houston-and-the-swarm-of-american-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston and the Swarm of American Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Of the 28 men in the ATP Houston main draw this week, 15 have a “USA” next to their names. The Americans include three of the top four seeds (John Isner<\/a>, Sam Querrey<\/a>, and Jack Sock<\/a>), two of the four qualifiers (Stefan Kozlov<\/a> and Denis Kudla<\/a>) and one of the three wild cards (Mackenzie McDonald<\/a>). The home-country dominance at the US Clay Court Championships hearkens back to earlier eras of professional tennis, when a few countries–the USA often first among them–dominated the ranks.<\/p>\n

Those days are long gone, but this week’s turnout in Texas is the latest sign of an American resurgence. Sure, many top players are taking the week off, and plenty of European contenders opted for a similarly valuable event in Marrakech, so US players hardly represent half of the best<\/em> ATPers. But 15 of 28–a main draw made up of such a high percentage of USAs–is something the tennis world hasn’t seen in a long time.<\/p>\n

Going back five decades, there have been just over 400 ATP-level tournaments in which one country represented more than half of main draw entrants–an average of about eight events per year. The average is misleading, though: Houston is the first time it has happened since 2004, and there are only two previous instances in the last two decades. To find another draw so packed with Americans, we need to go back to 1996. Here are the last 20 tournaments in which one country represented more than half of main draw players:<\/p>\n

Date      Tourney         Draw  Country  Count      %  \n20040412  Valencia        32    ESP         20  62.5%  \n19990913  Mallorca        32    ESP         18  56.3%  \n19970908  Marbella        32    ESP         18  56.3%  \n19960930  Marbella        32    ESP         18  56.3%  \n19960212  San Jose        32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19951002  Valencia        32    ESP         18  56.3%  \n19950206  San Jose        32    USA         18  56.3%  \n19940214  Philadelphia    32    USA         18  56.3%  \n19940131  San Jose        32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19930802  Los Angeles     32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19930201  San Francisco   32    USA         19  59.4%  \n19920803  Los Angeles     32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19910708  Newport         32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19910506  Charlotte       32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19910401  Orlando         32    USA         20  62.5%  \n19900730  Los Angeles     32    USA         19  59.4%  \n19900507  Kiawah Island   32    USA         24  75.0%  \n19900402  Orlando         32    USA         17  53.1%  \n19900219  Philadelphia    48    USA         27  56.3%  \n19900212  Toronto Indoor  56    USA         30  53.6%<\/pre>\n
The four most recent tournaments took place in three different places, but were instances of the same event. The rest of the draws on this list suggest just how many good tennis players were produced in that era by the United States. In about 85% of the tournaments in which one country made up half or more of the field, the dominant nation was the USA. Australia accounts for another 50, all at tournaments in Oz, most of them before 1980. The US is the only country to fill up more than half of a draw outside of its own borders.<\/p>\n
What makes this week’s feat in Houston even more remarkable is that the tournament’s organizers gave only one of the three wild cards to a local player. (The other two went to 4th seed Nick Kyrgios<\/a>, who didn’t bother to enter via conventional means, and fan favorite Dustin Brown<\/a>.) In other words, Americans would have accounted for half of the draw even without the aid of wild cards.<\/p>\n
This more specialized feat–non-wild cards from one country accounting for half of the draw–is even rarer over the last 25 years or so. Of the 20 tournaments listed above, only nine met this more rigorous standard. The other 11 only cleared the bar with the aid of wild cards. The 2004 Valencia tournament still qualifies, but for the most recent instance on American soil, we need to go back more than 25 years, to the 1993 event in San Francisco<\/a>. That tourney had good reason to retain at least one wild card for a foreigner, as the organizers managed to attract Bjorn Borg<\/a>. Borg lost in the first round, and Andre Agassi<\/a> took the championship with a final-round win over Brad Gilbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen whether the sheer force of numbers will be enough to keep the Houston title in American hands. (Steve Johnson<\/a>, the sixth seed this week, won it last year.) Of the 400-plus events with more than half of players representing the same flag, the winner has come from that dominant country about 73% of the time. My model<\/a> suggests it is a toss-up this week, with a 48.9% probability that a US player wins it all. One of the favorites, however, is Australian Nick Kyrgios, with nearly a 45% chance of winning himself. One dark horse is the most interesting of all: Fifth seed Fernando Verdasco<\/a> won this event four years ago. And fourteen years ago in Valencia, the last time one country made up more than half of an ATP draw, Verdasco was the man who hoisted the trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italian translation at settesei.it Of the 28 men in the ATP Houston main draw this week, 15 have a “USA” next to their names. The Americans include three of the top four seeds (John Isner, Sam Querrey, and Jack Sock), two of the four qualifiers (Stefan Kozlov and Denis Kudla) and one of the three … Continue reading Houston and the Swarm of American Men<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toy-stats","category-wild-cards"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}