This year’s US Open marks 20 years since an American man last won a grand slam title: a once-unthinkable drought for one of the sport’s historic powerhouses. Where did it all go wrong?
It started out as a trickle.
In 1993, the relatively unheralded Sergi Bruguera won the first of his two consecutive French Open titles, becoming the first Spaniard to claim a men’s major since Manuel Orantes’ triumph at the US Open in 1975 (Arantxa Sánchez Vicario had won the women’s title in Paris in 1989). Then a few years later, in 1998, Bruguera’s countryman, Carlos Moya, claimed the French Open. He was followed by two more Spaniards, with Juan Carlos Ferrero’s triumph in Paris in 2003 and Albert Costa’s victory there a year later. For a country that had a rather modest pedigree, Spain was becoming a presence in men’s tennis.