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On Tennis

In Era of the Big Four, the U.S. Still Awaits Its Next Big One

John Isner, left, after his five-set victory over Frances Tiafoe in their opening match at the United States Open. “You’ve got a great future,” Isner told him.Credit...Christian Hansen for The New York Times

The very tall man was at the net, about to smash a ball past Frances Tiafoe and possibly through the corporate signage on the back wall of the new Grandstand court.

John Isner, all 6 feet 10 inches of him, pounded an overhead smash straight at the 6-2 Tiafoe, the high bounce forcing him to time his leap — perfectly and majestically — to send back a rocket that landed at Isner’s feet, with help from the net cord.

Isner pushed the half-volley into the net. Tiafoe’s small cheering section broke into a chant — “Big Foe, Big Foe” — and continued to whoop it up as Tiafoe, 18, used his quick feet and laser groundstrokes to take to take the first two sets from the 31-year-old Isner and reach double break point at two-all in the third.

Oh, my, what have we here, the sunbaked crowd must have collectively been thinking — the eureka moment American men’s tennis had been waiting for, the christening of a United States Open venue with a symbolic passing of a generational torch?

Not quite. Not yet. Tiafoe missed wide on an open-court forehand by two inches that would have given him a 4-1 lead in a third-set tiebreaker. He served for the match at 5-3 in the fifth but was broken at 15.

No stranger to surviving marathons, Isner won the 3-hour-27-minute match, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3). Then he reached down to hug a crestfallen Tiafoe, who rested his head on Isner’s shoulder.

“You’ve got a great future,” Isner told the 125th-ranked Tiafoe.

For the folks in charge of developing American men’s tennis players, it can’t come soon enough.

While Serena Williams continues along her merry path of historical milestones, the anticipation grows for an era of men’s tennis that will put the United States back on the map that has for much of this century been ruled by Europe.

The question is posed reflexively over and over — like spinning balls over the net in an endless clay-court rally — by an American news media a little bit bored counting the years (12) since a home boy carried off the hardware from the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Forget exceptional; America has been hard-pressed to produce a quasi-contender in this tournament or any Grand Slam.

It’s not as if the cupboard has been bare of competitive quality. Isner cracked the top 10 in 2012. Last month, Sam Querrey shocked Novak Djokovic in the third round at Wimbledon. Steve Johnson, 26, has evolved from career journeyman to the 19th seed, highest of all American men, in this, the final Grand Slam event of the year.

But in a period measured by the otherworldly dominance of the Big Four, the reaction to this generation — call it the Ranked 20-Something — has generally been: Move on, nothing to see here.

Is that a fair characterization? Not really. How many of us would want to be compared weekly to the Djokovics and Roger Federers of our professions? How many of us know anyone who can state unequivocally that they are the 22nd or 23rd best in the world at what they do?

“I would say the people in the States probably don’t realize how good of an accomplishment that is given the era that I have played in,” Isner said in a recent interview. “American tennis fans of the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s were pretty spoiled.”

Ask the Florida-trained kids with their caps on backward if they would sign up for the career of Jack Sock, who has been ranked as high as No. 22 (currently 27), has won the United States Open boys’ singles title, Wimbledon doubles in 2014 and gold and bronze medals in mixed and men’s doubles this month at the Olympics in Brazil.

Sock, all of 23, is still trying to find a better-than-pedestrian backhand to complement his power forehand. But even in a sport with an expanded time allowance for self-discovery, he had to feel more a part the Isner crowd when he held off Taylor Fritz — also 18 and the highest ranked (No. 53) and touted of America’s teenage next wave — in five sets Monday night, 7-6 (3), 7-5, 3-6, 1-6, 6-4, in Louis Armstrong Stadium.

In a recent interview, Sock snickered at the question of appreciation. He grew up in Nebraska, where many still wonder if life is worth living without a national championship in college football.

“In tennis, if you’re 25 in the world, there’s more expectations no matter how you do,” he said. “You kind of keep that in the back of your head, you know? You can win a tournament at No. 25 and people are asking, ‘Why aren’t you in the top 10?’ If you lose early in a tournament, then it’s a disappointment. It’s a lose-lose a lot of the time unless you’re one of those top four guys.”

Tennis in the United States has long been an industry in deep psychoanalysis, trying to imagine a way out of its niche-level standing, even as its Grand Slam event continues a $600 million infrastructure expansion that threatens to devour Queens.

But was the sport really that much more appealing in America when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were its headliners? Federer, Rafael Nadal and the others are charismatic citizens of the world, celebrities without borders. Venus and Serena Williams have transcended the women’s game and the sport in part because their back story from Compton, Calif., was so compelling.

Tiafoe has one that is uniquely American, too, as the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone. While his father, Constant, was employed as a custodian at a junior tennis facility in College Park, Md., he found his way onto those courts and the rest is history, albeit a short one.

“Toughest loss of my career so far, for sure,” he said, soft-spoken in style more than in sorrow. “I pretty much did everything but win.”

He did make a believer of Isner, who called Tiafoe’s backhand “world-class” and insisted that no one except Djokovic had returned his monster serve as well.

“Such an incredible athlete — he’s got that on his side and that’s not going to go anywhere,” Isner said.

Still, Tiafoe is a long way from where Isner has already been, the top 10, and that is a climb that could take years, if it ever happens at all.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Era of the Big Four, the U.S. Is Still Awaiting Its Next Big One. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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