Andy Roddick, as many talented players do, wanted to be number 1.  And, for a while, in that period between the decline of Sampras and the rise of Federer, he was number 1.  Given players like Federer and Nadal and Djokovic and Murray and…., Andy Roddick could always say that, at the very least, he was in the top 10.  Today, that changed.  He didn’t become number 1, but twice that.  Well, he became number 11.  And for the first time since the ATP had rankings, no American is in the top 10, with Andy Roddick being the torch-bearer for the better part of the last decade.

And with that dip in ranking, no American man is in the top 10, the first time that’s ever happened, at least, since the ATP started ranking men in 1973.  Back then, you had Stan Smith, Arthur Ashe, and Jimmy Connors, high up in the ranks.  In the late 70s and early 80s, John McEnroe was a top player.  Up to about 1990, McEnroe stayed in the top 10 (mostly).  Agassi was in the top 10 in mid 1988 and held that until about 1992, but by then Courier, Chang, Sampras, and a whole host of Americans stayed in the top 10 through the early 2000, and after that, it was mostly Roddick with the occasional Blake in the top 10.

Although this seems bad, there are at least a reasonable number of top 100 American male players.  The Williams sisters have done an excellent effort masking the lack of good American players.  Melanie Oudin is good, but it looks like she’s not going to be a top 10 player any time soon.  Then, who is after that?  Oudin is 42 in the world.  Vania King is 81.  Mattek-Sands is 97.  Back when Chris Evert was the top woman player, there were probably 20-30 other American women in the top 100.

At least the American men have some representation in the top 100: Roddick, Isner, Querrey, Fish, Dent (at 81) and Russell (at 82).  It’s not great.  Ginepri, Blake, Reynolds, Kendrick, Ram, and a whole host of others who were close to the top 100.  It may say something that Donald Young, at 104, is ahead of James Blake, at 108.

It isn’t entirely clear who the up-and-comers in American tennis are.  There’s no one like Nadal, Djokovic, or Murray, who served notice to the world in their late teens.  A few years ago, there was some thought that the two late bloomers and best friends, James Blake and Mardy Fish, might fill that role and join Roddick in the top 10.  Blake is older than Roddick, and he’s not had a year like 2006 when he was number 4 in the world, but that year seems more of a fluke.  Blake continued to play reasonably well for a few years, but has fallen off the radar this year with his poor play.

Currently, the best American hopes are Sam Querrey and John Isner.  Both play a form of “big guy” tennis.  Big first serve, followed by a big forehand.  It’s not clear either move well enough to enter the top 10.   The two slowest players in the top 10 are Robin Soderling and Juan Martin del Potro, and yet both move well enough, and both have huge serves and have bigger forehands than Querrey.  And both seem to have an intensity Querrey lacks.  The good news for Querrey is that he’s winning close matches that he used to lose.  Isner does a good job of that as well, but his mobility is his Achilles heel.  Unless he can make both wings into an even more formidable weapon, like Delpo, it will be challenging for him to get to the top 10.

Right now, of all the Americans, Andy Roddick, ranked 11, has the best chance to get back into the top 10.  At the very least, once the US Open is over, del Potro will likely fall out of the top 10, impressive that he stayed there so long given  he didn’t play either the French or Wimbledon.

The last few years have been interesting for Andy Roddick.  He’s had mood swings up and down where he had confidence and where he lost it.  2008, a year Roddick hoped would be good for him, turned out to be a year he despaired.

In 2008, Roddick made a rather bold decision to skip the Olympics so he could prepare for the US Open.  However, he entered the US Open fragile, his confidence shaken after losing to then unheralded Juan Martin del Potro in Los Angeles, then to Victor Troicki in DC.  He had a reasonable US Open.  He asked Patrick McEnroe to serve as interim coach after letting his brother go.  He reached the quarterfinals losing in an infamous match to Novak Djokovic, who decided to use his post-match interview to say how much he didn’t appreciate Roddick calling him a faker.  While Roddick didn’t appear to mind that much, the audience did, and it may have played a role in Djokovic putting in a weak performance against Roger Federer in the semifinals.

In 2009, Roddick had teamed with Larry Stefanki, and reached a Slam final (Wimbledon) for the first time in a few years.  For once, he played Roger very close, and lost an agonizing fifth set.  Even so, he thought this might propel him to a good second half of the year.  Except, he had an injury at Wimbledon, skipped a few weeks, and started losing to his fellow Americans, like Sam Querrey in Los Angeles, and John Isner at the US Open.  In Shanghai, Roddick complained about the long schedule causing top pros to get injured, and promptly got injured and didn’t play the rest of the year.

In 2010, Roddick then appeared to be gaining some momentum early in the year.  In Indian Wells, Roddick reached the finals when pretty much all the top seeds lost early or didn’t play.  He lost to Ivan Ljubicic, who won his first Masters 1000 title after 3 previous attempts had him being the bridesmaid.  The following tournament, in Miami, also saw top seeds fall, and also saw Roddick make the finals.  This time, he would face Tomas Berdych, who had upset Roger Federer earlier in the tournament, and beat him to take the title.

Roddick then took a lot of time off, and didn’t play again until the French Open.  Clay has always been Roddick’s weakest surface, but with his steady play off the ground, one had imagined he might do better.  Instead, he lost in the third round to Gabashvili, which was one round earlier than the previous year when he lost to Monfils.  At Wimbledon, Roddick lost to Yen-Hsun Lu in the fourth round, and that meant a lot of points that he failed to defend.

Then, he lost to Gilles Simon in the third round at DC, an event he was a finalist the year before.

Roddick now has some work to do if he wants to get back into the top 10 soon.  He is right behind Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who reached the semifinals of Canada last year.  Normally this would be great because Tsonga has a lot of points to defend and is unlikely to reach the semifinals this year.  But Roddick also reached the semifinals last year.  If Roddick finishes ahead of Tsonga by enough points, he might return to the top 10.

His best bet to return to the top 10 is del Potro.  del Potro was a finalist in Canada and had 600 points which will become 0 since he’s not playing this year.  However, Roddick needs to reach the semifinals again to move to 10 and stay ahead of del Potro.  If he only gets to the quarterfinals, he will lose 180 points which will put him underneath del Potro.

It’s possible that Roddick could move ahead of Tsonga, though somewhat unlikely.  Tsonga is 220 points ahead of Roddick which means Roddick must reach the semifinals again and Tsonga must lose quite early for Roddick to move ahead.  And if Roddick reaches the semis, he’d get back to 10 just be del Potro failing to play Toronto, although he’d move to 8 ahead of Tsonga and del Potro.  Odds are, short of a great performance in Toronto, Roddick will remain at 11.

Roddick’s best chance is to play well in Toronto (say, reach at least the quarters) and do the same in Cincinnati where he lost early last year, and that would leave him around 10 heading into the US Open.  Alas, del Potro skipped Cincy last year because of the heat issues in Montreal (when the Rogers Cup was held there last year).  So he can’t hope that Delpo will lose even more points in Cincy.

In theory, Verdasco could help Roddick get into the top 10.  Verdasco is 8 in the world and only a mere 20 points ahead of number 9, Tsonga.  However, Verdasco did poorly in Canada and Cincinnati, so he has few points to defend.  His best result from that period of time was winning New Haven, the week before the US Open. Verdasco only has to do middling to defend his points.  It’s unlikely Verdasco will slip behind Roddick without Roddick playing crazy good tennis the next two weeks.

The other hope is Tomas Berdych who is only 10 points ahead of Delpo.  Unfortunately, Berdych only has 190 points to defend in the next two tournaments, so even if he were to skip the two tournaments, he’d lose 190 points, greater than the gap between him and Roddick.

Of course, Roddick could, I suppose win either Toronto or Cincinnati which would help him get into the top 10 as well.  He would need to regain the form he had earlier in the year and hope players like Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer are still struggling.  That seems like a tall order.

So meanwhile, we see what happens.  Many other questions remain for the top players, in particular, whether Federer can regain his form or not, whether Murray has a chance as the US Open, how Djokovic is playing, and so forth.