American men still searching for a way to emulate Keys and Gauff success

LONDON :With Madison Keys and Coco Gauff raising hopes that they could complete an "American slam" of the majors this year, their male counterparts at Wimbledon can only look on enviously.

Keys ended her long wait to get her hands on a Grand Slam trophy at the Australian Open this year and when Gauff triumphed at the French Open earlier this month it seemed like there was no stopping the Americans - in the women's draw at least.

Unfortunately for the men, Andy Roddick's U.S. Open victory in 2003 remains a painful reminder - year after year - of how long it has been since an American man picked up a singles trophy at one of the four majors.

The singles draw at Wimbledon is populated with 45 Americans - 19 in the women's and 16 in the men's - which is almost double that of any other country.

Some of the players in action this year at Wimbledon, such as Learner Tien and Alex Michelsen, were not even born when Roddick was the toast of Flushing Meadows.

This year, the leader of the men's pack was supposed to be fifth seed Taylor Fritz, who came into the tournament riding high on confidence after winning his fourth Eastbourne title two days ago.

In fact, in the Wimbledon men's field, he owns the second highest number of grasscourt titles - his haul of five only behind seven-times Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic.

But on Monday he came within two points of going out in the first round before hanging tough to win the fourth set tiebreak and leave the match deadlocked at two sets all when play was suspended for the night, 45 minutes before the 11pm curfew.

Fritz's day summed up the plight faced by American men.

He seemed to be on the verge of becoming the highest-seeded casualty even though he never got broken and had set points in