The United States once pumped out Wimbledon champions with a regularity taken for granted but it has been lacking lately
The impish grin of Colonel Sanders looking down from the KFC signage amid the upmarket boutiques on high street is proof that not even Wimbledon village has been entirely immune to the creeping Americanization of British culture in recent years. Funny how the trend has been inverted at the All England Club right down the road, where the once-consistent US presence at the business end of the championships – excepting the wholly exceptional reign of the Williams sisters – has been all but a sepia-toned memory over the past two decades.
In the opening stages of Wednesday’s much-talked-about American takeover of Centre Court, it looked to be more of the same. When Taylor Fritz was broken in his opening service game and quickly fell behind Rafael Nadal beneath overcast skies following Amanda Amanisova’s error-strewn capitulation to Simona Halep, it appeared the last remaining US players in either Wimbledon singles draw would be swept aside in drama-free fashion.
