{"id":2787,"date":"2026-09-13T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2787"},"modified":"2026-09-13T11:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:00:21","slug":"john-mcenroe-has-a-theory-on-why-american-men-have-not-won-the-us-open-ahead-of-ben-sheltons-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2787","title":{"rendered":"John McEnroe has a theory on why American men have not won the US Open ahead of Ben Shelton\u2019s final"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McEnroe has backed Ben Shelton<\/a> to end America\u2019s long drought without a men\u2019s singles champion at the US Open, but he admits the \u2018lack of accessibility\u2019 remains a big problem for American kids looking to make a break into tennis.<\/p>\n

Shelton will aim to become the first American male to win his home Grand Slam<\/a> since Andy Roddick\u2019s win back in 2003 if he beats Alexander Zverev in Sunday\u2019s final in New York, with McEnroe convinced he can get the job done.<\/p>\n

The pressure will be piled onto Shelton as he aims to end America\u2019s long wait and McEnroe is backing the Florida-born player to prevail, even though he has lost all five of his previous matches against Zverev.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen played the match of his life to beat Alcaraz,\u201d said McEnroe in his role as a Eurosport and HBO Max analyst.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not the best thing for our game that the best match of the tournament was finishing at 3.30am. I spoke to Ben yesterday and he didn\u2019t get to bed until 7.30am, which is not great.<\/p>\n

More Tennis News<\/h2>\n

Shocking statistics that confirm Alexander Zverev is a huge favourite to beat Ben Shelton in US Open final<\/a><\/p>\n

John McEnroe predicts when Novak Djokovic will call time on his tennis career<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut he showed what he was made of and what he can do. It\u2019s a shame a lot of people didn\u2019t see it at that time in the morning, but Ben has a big chance to win this thing now and I think he\u2019s gonna do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

McEnroe also reflected on why America has not had a US Open champion in over two decades in the men\u2019s draw, as he believes the interest in other sports is a factor that sees some of the country\u2019s best talent slip through the tennis net.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels to me that tennis is more accessible in other countries, especially Europe,\u201d said McEnroe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our country, to be blunt, the accessibility is a big issue. The best athletes play American football, basketball, in some cases, soccer. You have the affordability issues and tennis is expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see in the women\u2019s game that there are more opportunities because of equal prize money and the best athletes like Serena Williams end up playing tennis.<\/p>\n

\"John\n

John McEnroe \u2013 Eurosport Tennis Expert<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI try to provide more opportunity for kids at my club and for kids that otherwise couldn\u2019t afford it. There\u2019s a great history in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a great history in America for tennis, but it is a long time since we had a men\u2019s winner at the US Open.<\/p>\n

Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSo it would be big if it happens this year. We also need to look at ways to get more kids playing tennis in America and I do that at my club by trying to give kids a chance who might not ordinarily play the sport, but it\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The emergence of the Williams sisters sparked a huge surge of interest in tennis in the black communities in America and after Shelton became the first person of colour to reach the US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, his success could also be a catalyst for a new generation of kids setting their sights on a career in the sport.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: John McEnroe has some candid advice for Alex Eala after describing key shot as \u2018a liability\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post John McEnroe has a theory on why American men have not won the US Open ahead of Ben Shelton\u2019s final<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McEnroe has backed Ben Shelton to end America\u2019s long drought without a men\u2019s singles champion at the US Open, but he admits the \u2018lack of accessibility\u2019 remains a big problem for American kids looking to make a break into tennis. Shelton will aim to become the first American male to win his home Grand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}