Heading into their major home tournament there are a lot of expectations surrounding US tennis.

Serena Williams is in phenomenal form after her comeback from a career-threatening injury while Mardy Fish’s rise to No.7 in the world along with his recent victory over Rafael Nadal will have lifted hopes they could do well in the men’s draw too.
However the lingering question over the future still remains. Serena and her sister Venus have three maybe two more US Opens left at the top of the game and Fish is unlikely to match his declining compatriot Andy Roddick in winning it during his career swan song.

This is therefore the moment for the next generation to make a claim. They’ll be under the microscope more than they have been all season during what they’ll be hoping is a two-week stint in New York.

For the men it’s all on Ryan Harrison, a 19-year-old who’s broken into the top 100 this year and continues to rise to career high levels with every stride he makes.

The stats say an American man last won a Grand Slam in 2003 (Roddick at the US Open) but if it weren’t for the greatest player of all time Roger Federer, there would have been many more triumphs.
Effectively Federer stopped Roddick becoming a legend of the sport which is a fate also inflicted on Lleyton Hewitt whose own nation is stressing over the future as well.

Harrison has entered the tennis scene at a good time. Federer is declining year by year while Nadal and Novak Djokovic will be at a similar crossroads when he reaches his peak.
The worry is Harrison may be carrying all of America’s hopes for a long while as there is no obvious candidate to challenge the tennis elite alongside the six-foot, Louisiana-born teen although Bjorn Fratengelo’s French Open junior success offers hope.

The ladies have more numbers but it’s not exactly strength in depth. The crisis for women’s tennis in the US is much deeper and exemplified by their dreadful Fed Cup form which has seen them drop out of the World Group for the first time in their 16-year existence.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands doesn’t possess the time or ability to transform into a top 20 player, while Coco Vandeweghe, Irina Falconi and Alison Riske have been floating around the top 100 fringes all year and teenager Sloane Stephens has yet to match Harrison in breaking the barrier to the next level despite glimpses of her potential.
Christina McHale has also showed signs of form, beating world number one Caroline Wozniacki at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati last week and along with the aforementioned quartet has age on her side.

Two years ago it was Melanie Oudin who burst onto the scene, reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon and following that up by making the quarter-finals of the US Open aged just 17.
As you’d expect, much hype then surrounded Oudin. She went on to earn the Newcomer of the Year accolade and now sits sandwiched between Wozniacki and Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova on the list of previous winners.
Despite the talent she finds herself cocooned in, the filling of that sandwich doesn’t quite taste as good as its encasing.
Oudin, now pushing 20, hasn’t won a WTA title and even worse finds herself outside the top 100 going into the tournament where she announced herself as the heir to women’s tennis in America.

But there’s no reason why she can’t recapture that 2009 form in the future. Players don’t reach the second week of a major twice without having some sort of skill.

At the present time though, unless Maria Sharapova decides to do a Martina Navratilova or Monica Seles and convert nationalities this could be a dwindling situation where an American of any gender goes into the US Open as a favorite.

The transitional phase is edging ever closer and the chances of a big name emerging to save their blushes is becoming more and more unlikely but they’re producing enough players on both main tours and junior circuits so the chances are at least one will come good eventually.

The trouble is America expects success, in every sport, all the time. Their ‘crisis’ would be seen as a healthy position for nations such as Great Britain. Therefore if Serena goes on to claim her 14th Grand Slam title, it should be savored, especially if another Oudin story fails to materialize; but while they may have to be patient with the Williams sisters gone, make no mistake, they’ll be back.

Article written by Tennis Buzz new contributor, Lewis Davies.
Lewis is a 20-year-old sports fan, webmaster of Ace of Baseline, a blog that focus on the next tennis superstars .