There's aren't many tennis events this week in the U.S where it's possible to avoid the topic of "what's wrong with American tennis?" Certainly a $50,000 Challenger outside a major media market like Chicago won't escape the scrutiny of a reporter determined to chime in on the subject.
This Chicago Tribune story quotes Scoville Jenkins, Phillip Simmonds, Amer Delic and Sam Querrey. Querrey, by the way, has reached Saturday's semifinals. Eliot Teltscher of the USTA High Performance program also has plenty to say. (One thing he says I most certainly do NOT agree with--that Michael Jordan would have been the best tennis player in the world if he had started in tennis not basketball. Jordan may have been a formidable tennis player, but as he's shown in golf and in his brief foray in minor league baseball, skills in one sport don't always translate to similar excellence in another.) Even Donald Young is pulled in to the scene, although quoted indirectly.
But perhaps there has been too much piling on by the media on this subject. And if you are looking for the contrarian view, here's a good one, by Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle. It's entitled American tennis in down period, but so what?