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Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Fading Stars and Stripes at Wimbledon
As Wimbledon gets under way this week in London, the TImes has released its list of the greatest 100 Wimbledon players in history.
Here are the top 10: 1) Martina Navratilova 2) Billie Jean King 3) Chris Evert 4) Steffi Graf 5) Helen Wills 6) Pete Sampras 7) Louise Brough 8) Jimmy Connors 9) Boris Becker 10) John McEnroe
Incidentally, the defending champion Roger Federer of Switzerland is No. 17 while Serena Williams is No. 34.
Over all, the United States is the best-represented country. But it’s a different story this year. The British media has made a point of hammering away at the fact that there hasn’t been an American male winner of a grand slam title in five years. According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, the causes are manifold — the number of sports tennis must contend with, poor coaching, and the fact that, despite the success of the Williams sisters, most American kids still view tennis as a “country club” sport. And if there are no Americans at the very top of a sport, the country just stops caring.
According to the newspaper, the British would never do that.
