All 15 American men out of US Open after 3rd round
Americans don't have a man in the round of 16 at their own Grand Slam for the first time.
NEW YORK (AP) - Much like American men's tennis, it might be best to say that Tim Smyczek ran out of gas Sunday night.
The 25-year-old from Milwaukee, who served up a funny headline when he told about how the car he was riding in ran out of gas en route to the U.S. Open last week, was two points away from helping his country avoid an ignominious fate.
"I never heard somebody yell out from the stands, 'You're our last hope,'" Smyczek said.
But he could not pull through against Marcel Granollers, losing 6-4, 4-6, 0-6, 6-3, 7-5 in front of a rowdy crowd chanting "USA! USA!" in the Grandstand. Now the Americans don't have a man in the round of 16 at their own Grand Slam for the first time since the tournament started in 1881.
"Couldn't be much more disappointed right now," Smyczek said. "It was pretty cool to be the last American in the draw for a day. Got a little taste of it."
Not that this latest American flop is all on Smyczek, who came in ranked 109th and was making his first appearance in the third round of a Grand Slam.
It was scheduling as much as anything that left him standing alone last among the 15 U.S. men who started this tournament
when the lights came on Sunday night. Jack Sock and John Isner lost their third-round matches Saturday. Isner, the highest-seeded U.S. man at No. 13, withered in a four-set loss to Philipp Kohlschreiber. In the second round, 26th-seeded Sam Querrey fell to Adrian Mannarino.
Smyczek's departure means nobody from the country that gave tennis Connors, McEnroe, Sampras and Agassi reached the fourth round at any Grand Slam in 2013. Last month, for the first time in the 40 years of the ATP rankings, there was a week with no U.S. men in the top 20.
"I know we got really spoiled with Pete, Andre, all those guys," Smyczek said. "But I think it's also a really exciting time because there's five, six, seven guys that are hovering right around 100 and have a good chance to make a big breakthrough."
Could Smyczek be the guy?
For a while during the 3-hour, 24-minute match against Granollers, it very much looked like he might be moving on to Week 2 and that maybe he'd be in the news for something other than the mishap he experienced before his first-round match, when the tournament car he was riding in ran out of gas en route to Flushing Meadows.
He went on to win that match, then the next. On Sunday, he was not overmatched. After losing a break after leading 4-2 in the final set slide, Smyczek had two chances to break back but couldn't convert on either. Then, four times while Granollers was serving at 5-4, Smyczek found himself two points from the match. He lost them all.
Then, with Granollers serving out the match at 6-5, Smyczek failed to get one return back in play.
"I'm going to take a couple days off and maybe take a step back and think about some things and just really take the positives," Smyczek said.
