INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- An undying conversation in tennis is the state of the American men's game. The next great player to follow the royal bloodlines of McEnroe, Connors, Agassi, Sampras and Courier is a storyline that persists even in a world where more countries play tennis beyond the United States, Great Britain and Australia.
However, America's tennis resources still fuel the world. Kei Nishikori, the world No. 5 from Japan, honed his skills in Florida at the IMG/Bollettieri Academy. Russian Maria Sharapova, the world No. 2 and five-time major winner, trains and lives in Florida and Los Angeles. Two-time major winner Victoria Azarenka came to the U.S. as she rose as a player, and now lives in California. The nationalism that has defined tennis for more than a century is somewhat outdated.
Wednesday's session of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells provided a glimpse into the difficulties of the American challenge. Roger Federer, the legend, and No. 2 player in the world, beat Jack Sock, the next great American hope, relatively easily into submission in the final match of the day session. In the night session, the world's best player and the Indian Wells defending champ Novak Djokovic beat America's best, 20th-ranked John Isner, in a typical, tense thriller.
Sock and Isner faced a combined 25 grand slam titles in taking on the two best players in the world, and the result was a curious combination. Sock, all youth and rawness, playing in his first match against Federer, succumbed to the man who has seen it all. The final score was 6-3, 6-2, for Federer. At 4-2 in the second set, Sock had earned three points total in the set.
Still, as the American group of Isner, Donald Young, Steve Johnson and Sock are America's best, the gap is wide between them and the top. The distance Sock must travel -- though he has a Wimbledon doubles and U.S. Open mixed doubles title already to his credit -- is great. Over the past two days, Young and Johnson each faced a top-10 player, with Young falling to Rafael Nadal and Johnson falling to Tomas Berdych on Tuesday.
Watching Isner, meanwhile, is fascinating, both for his multifaceted deficiencies and how his massive weapons compensate for the shots he cannot execute well. He is still a frightening, elite player. Isner has the best serve in tennis, a weapon so singularly deadly that it keeps him in the top 20 even when his return game is the worst in the sport. This, it should be noted, is hard to do.
Isner entered his match against Djokovic winning just six percent of his return games. The best players in the game break serve at 28-35 percent. This is why Isner is no longer a top-10 player, even though he is still a difficult opponent to challenge. And yet Isner was moments away from taking the match to a third set, which meant a third-set tiebreak was possible. It is who he is. Afterward, he mused on his flawed but dangerous game.
"I'm close. I'm really close," Isner said.
One exchange said it all in the first set. At 3-3, Djokovic absorbed an entire game of Isner's first serves, including the final rocket: a 141 mph shot on break point. Isner never saw a break point in the set.
This is who Isner is, and at 30, who he will be. The confounding part is a lesson in contradiction: focusing on Isner's majestic serve when his career has really been determined by his return. Sock, meanwhile, saw the gulf of his career in front of him on this afternoon. And by looking at Federer across the net, handling his power and all of his tools, Sock saw how far he must go. Such is the American dilemma.