PETE ZIEBRON
This week at the ATP Barcelona 500 tournament, not a single man from the United States of America will be playing the event. Last week, Ryan Harrison was the lone American man to make the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to play tennis at the Monte-Carlo Masters 1000 tournament.
Despite the fact that Roland Garros will get underway, the overwhelming majority of American men tend to feel like playing the US Clay Court Championships at the ATP 250 in Houston the week prior to Monte-Carlo rather than playing in Monaco and / or Barcelona will be more than sufficient work. Yes, there still remain two Masters 1000 events in Rome and Madrid prior to the second major of the year, however when one questions the results of American men at Roland Garros, these two paragraphs speak volumes with respect to the answer to any such inquiries.
Five years ago, Tennis Acumen pointed out the lack of American participation in Monte-Carlo and here is an update to the roll call:
Americans playing the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters 1000 since 2004:
- 2004 zero
- 2005 Vince Spadea
- 2006 zero
- 2007 zero
- 2008 Sam Querrey
- 2009 zero
- 2010 zero
- 2011 zero
- 2012 Donald Young
- 2013 John Isner {WC}
- 2014
- 2015 John Isner, Steve Johnson, Dennis Kudla {Q}
- 2016
- 2017 Ryan Harrison
Getting back to ATP tennis this week being played in Barcelona: the only American to ever win the title in Barcelona was Todd Martin in 1998.