Former USTA player development chief Patrick McEnroe says young American tour players like No. 36 Jack Sock and No. 55 Steve Johnson are playing well, but there is a good group of teenagers coming up behind them.
"I'm most excited about is not one player, but a group of five or six that are teenagers like [Jared] Donaldson and [Stefan] Kozlov and [Frances] Tiafoe and [Michael Mmoh] and Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul," said McEnroe, who works as a commentator for ESPN. "For the first time since I've been in this job, even going back before then, at least a decade or so, I think we've got a real strong group of teenagers."
McEnroe says it is easier for teenagers to develop when a group of them is pushing toward the top, which was the case in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Former Grand Slam champions Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang came into the pros more or less around the same time.
"The nice thing is I don't think we're going to rely on just one," McEnroe said. "As we've seen historically, generally when you have a group of players, they can push each other, maybe take a little pressure off of each other as they develop from 16 until they make it to be fixtures on the tour."