Live Tennis Featuring Americans!

Tomorrow I'll be at the boys' and girls' 14s National Open in Midland Michigan, a day trip for me. All I've been reading for the past two days are obituaries for U.S. tennis, so it will be refreshing to get back to the future so to speak. There are a couple of items I want to feature that address the decline and fall of American tennis primarily because they're authored by two of my favorite tennis writers. Whit Sheppard, a friend from my first Grand Slam--the 2004 US Open--freelances often for ESPN.com and he gets some interesting comments from the Bryan brothers in this piece.

And Peter Bodo has arrived in Wimbledon just as all the Americans left, but he has written a beautiful post entitled "Requiem for a Tennis Power." Several of those commenting offer their own thoughtful analysis on what's happened.

As for the action today at the Wimbledon Junior Championships, well there are a few U.S. players left. Julia Cohen and Donald Young won their first round matches, joining Chelsey Gullickson, Kellen Damico, Clint Bowles and Jamie Hunt in the second round.

The day's big upset was scored by Jaak Poldma of Estonia, who took out French Open champion and second seed Martin Klizan of the Slovak Republic in three sets.

Wimbledon.org has a roundup article that appears accurate.