Johnny Watterson On TennisJimmy Connors and Tracey Austin were on the roof of the broadcasting house at Wimbledon yesterday talking to the BBC's Sue Barker. Over the years of coming to Wimbledon, the British people have come to know where to look to see the stars.
As you walk around the courts, small gatherings crowd around eyeballing the roofs and galleries, pointing cameras toward the players' restaurant and peeking over the fence into the practice courts.
Looking up to the broadcasting centre yesterday, the sharp-eyed punters would have been seeing two of the last Americans still at the championships.
Despite the attention, Connors, who won Wimbledon twice and the US Open five times, and Austin, the US Open champion in 1979 and 1981, could easily have been forgiven for feeling alone.
While Wimbledon is a reminder every year in Ireland that the country consistently fails to produce players capable of lining up in Grand Slam draws of 128 men and 128 women, it is the US that is feeling the pressure of a shifting of power in the game away from that continent and increasingly toward Eastern Europe and Russia.
On court three last Monday, Shenay Perry's 6-2, 6-0 defeat at the hands of Russia's Elena Dementieva brought to an end US involvement in what was the worst Wimbledon in nearly a century for the United States.
The match that followed also provided a glimpse of what might be in the offing, if the drift east continues at its current pace. Following Perry's abrupt departure, the 27th-seeded player, Na Li, powerfully battled her way through to the quarter-finals to become the first Chinese player ever to make it to such a late stage in a Grand Slam.
The fall and rise were never so conveniently illustrated.
The last time there were no Americans in the singles quarter-finals at Wimbledon was in 1911, when the US had no women and just three men entered in the tournament.
At least one US player has reached the men's or women's quarter-finals at every Wimbledon since then.
This is also the first time at any Grand Slam tournament since the 1976 Australian Open that no US man or woman reached the quarter-finals. This year, nine men and 14 women from the United States were in the singles draw.
More recently the erratic commitment of the Williams sisters Venus and Serena, the suggestion that the US are to consider sending out a national search party to find Andy Roddick's "mojo", and the inevitable decline of Andre Agassi hurt. The US has struggled to produce another player even to break into the top 10. Only James Blake, currently ranked seven in the world, has provided hope, and he went out in the second round in Wimbledon to Max Mirnyi, who is not in the top 50.
Others have failed to make an impact. Robby Ginepri, ranked 17, bowed out to his US compatriot Mardy Fish in the first round before Fish retired sick in the third round.
The American women are struggling even more. In the top 10 there are four Russians: Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva.
Only the creaking Lindsay Davenport, ranked seven, keeps the stars-and-stripes flying despite being on the brink of retirement. Venus Williams has slipped to 12, while Serena is not even ranked, as she is injured.
There is only one other American female in the top 50: Jill Craybas at 43.
Yesterday's female quarter-finalists comprised two French, two Belgians, three Russians and a Chinese, Na Li.
In the men's quarter-final line-up all the players with the exception of the Australian Lleyton Hewitt are European.
For profile and breadth, tennis needs Americans like Austin and Connors in Grand Slams. No one says it is easy but the difference is that America seems to have forgotten how to do what Russia now can, while countries such as Ireland have yet to learn.
