We have been spoiled. It's true. You could argue that it started way back in the 1920's with "Big" Bill Tilden and his 10 majors, and the thread carried on through the ensuing decades.

The honor roll of American tennis reads like a "Who's who" of the all-time greats of the sport. Jack Kramer in the 50's. Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith in the 60's and 70's. Then something special happened in the mid 1970's and continued into the mid 2000's: the U.S. experienced a dominating run of greatness.

The United States produced five multiple Slam winners, four of which are almost universally considered to be amongst the top 10 greatest players of all-time.

The list includes eight-time major winner and 39-year-old U.S. Open semifinalist Jimmy Connors. Seven-time major winner John McEnroe is also on that list. Eight-time major winner, Olympic gold medalist, and four surface career grand slam holder Andre Agassi is also on that list. Agassi is also the oldest ever to be ranked number one. Pete Sampras was the last name on that storied list, as he is a 14-time major winner, six times ending the year at number one, and Grand Slam record holder.

Think about this for a minute. Forty percent of the top 10 players EVER, are Americans! This list doesn't even include other great American champions and top 10ers like Jim Courier, Vitas Gerulaitis, Michael Chang, and Todd Martin. It's safe to say that American tennis has a rich legacy.

Today the American contingent is led by Andy Roddick and James Blake. After these two, the talent pool starts to get a little thin.

We are all hoping that Sam Querrey continues to progress well. Querrrey has the tools to be a consistent top 20 player. However, the jury is still out on whether or not he's of quite the same caliber as other young guns and potential slam contenders like Juan Matrin Del Potro, Marin Cilic, or Ernests Gulbis. 

The one American youngster who does have that world class kind of talent, Donald Young, seems to have lost his way after a climb into the top 100. Right now, he isn't mature enough to see the real benefit of separating from his parents and seeking new coaching.

At least for the near future, America's slim chances of seeing more men's grand slam winners resides squarely on the shoulders of Andy Roddick and James Blake.

For Roddick, the pressure has been on since 2000 when he won the Junior Australian Open and became the number one ranked junior in the world. He was the next in line to take the torch from the Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras generation. As his body developed, his serve and forehand were transformed into huge shots.

Even though he grew to be a pretty strapping guy at about 6'2" and 200 pounds, he maintained his scrappy baseliner mentality of his days as an undersized junior. In many ways, Roddick plays the game like a 5'10" 160 pound guy.

Despite a 155 mph first serve and wicked second serve, he has developed a comfort zone six to 10 feet behind the baseline.

Roddick plays a defensive, almost counter-punching, topspin based ground game. This especially creeps out when he gets tight. In an effort to change, he's taken to venturing into the net. In truth, Roddick is probably a C+ volleyer, so his net ventures are only moderately successful against top flight competition.

While Andy is good at movement and is remarkably consistent for a guy his size, he often allows smaller, weaker opponents to bully him around the court.

I watched 154 pound Nikolay Daveydenko bully him in straight sets last year in Miami. A few times a year, he does flatten out his forehand and hug the baseline. When he adheres to these tactics, he is a nightmare to play against.

But for reasons unknown, he only does this once in a blue moon. The truth is simple: As good an athlete as Roddick is, he is not a fast enough guy to hang in long rallies with the guys in the top 10. Period.

When he imposes his game and uses the serve to set up a big, flat forehand, he becomes a legit top 10 guy. When he plays agressively from the baseline, the net game comes much more easily because the volleys are simple shots, usually high above the net and easily put away.

All too often, Roddick barrels into the net off of an almost neutral approach, and is forced to hit multiple volleys. If he had Pat Rafter's, Stefan Edberg's, or even Tim Henman's hands, maybe he'd have a shot. But against the passing shots of today's top guys, he's a sitting duck up there. 

Andy is a big, strong guy. He needs to play big man tennis. The type of game that looks to finish the point in under six shots. Even if he's missing some, it still means that he's dictating play and taking rhythm away from the other guy. 

There are many reasons for Roddick's inability to add on to his lone U.S. open victory.

First of all, there is Roger Federer. In many ways I think that Federer took his heart and his belief away. You could even argue that Rafael Nadal has done the same thing to Federer. When you get to the top of the mountain, as Roddick did in 2003 by winning a grand slam and getting to the number one seed, amazing confidence comes with it.

But when somebody beats you time and time again, when someone denies you the career-defining majors that Federer has denied Andy, doubt sets in. Lost is that little bit of confidence in your biggest shots. You start to heistate just a bit right before making contact with the ball.

You start missing. To compensate, you start playing "safer" tennis.

The problem with that is Roddick isn't a top 10 guy when he's just keeping the ball in play. He's not a Federer, or Hewitt, or any of those ultra fast grinders that thrive on breaking opponents down through countless 20-30 shot rallies.

Andy needs to go through his opponents, overpower them. We've watched Roddick since losing the 2004 Wimbledon Final get progressively conservative with his shots, almost regressing to his junior days.

As a result, guys like Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray, have passed him. It's a mental situation with Andy. I think he resents the era in which he's had to play, following two legends, only to come up against two more.

Andy never really had a passing-of-the-torch win. As a teenager, Agassi demolished Jimmy Connors at the U.S. Open, as well as John McEnroe in the semis of Wimbledon en route to winning his first major. Pete Sampras knocked out Lendl and McEnroe en route to his first slam at the U.S. open. Federer beat Pete Sampras at Wimbledon, even though he didn't win the title that year. It was a symbolic changing of the guard moment.

Roddick never had that moment. He was never really able to beat Andre Agassi his entire career (1-5 career, with his lone win coming in a third set breaker at Queens).

As for Pete Sampras, he enjoyed some early success against him, but in the biggest match that the two contested, a quarterfinal night match at the U.S. Open, he was utterly demolished. The torch was never officially passed.

Andy's career parallels that of boxer Oscar de la Hoya. A huge star, a fan favorite, and a very good player who just seems to come up a little bit short against the best of the best.

Perhaps only in America can a guy who has won a slam, multiple master's events, been ranked number one in the world, and won well over 20 tournaments be considered a bit of a disappointment. How spoiled have we been?

After Marat Safin, James Blake is the biggest enigma in tennis. Blake is absolutely dripping with talent. He's one of the three best pure athletes in the game (along with Nadal, and Monfils). He is fast, strong, and extremely powerful. There may be no one on tour who can hit a forehand as hard or as flat as James.

When I look at James Blake and Andy Roddick side by side and compare strengths, James is actually the more talented player. He's much faster. He's got a more penetrating forehand. He is capable of hitting more winners off the backhand side. He has better timing and can take the ball on earlier. He's a better returner. His one handed backhand allows him to play a more natural transition game.

When James reached number four in the world, I actually believed that he had a better chance of winning a future slam than Andy Roddick. Sucks to be wrong. In many ways, James needs a little bit of Andy's tendencies in his game, and Andy needs a little bit of James' mentality in his game.

They each have what the other lacks. James' go-for-broke style can beat any one in the in the world when it's clicking, evidenced by convincing wins over guys like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and David Nalbandian.

At the same time, James is capable of losing to anyone in the world as well, as he demonstrated in losess to no name players in last year's Delray Beach and Houston Finals. 

Blake suffers from an accute case of low expectations, with a shortage of on-court discipline. Coming from a collegiate tennis background, many people thought Blake might be a top 100 player at best. This is what James thought as well.

But by 2001, he went from a guy with virtually no weapons, a weak backhand, and suspect fitness to having developed an absolutely huge forehand. Each year, he began to add to his game. His ability to take the ball on the rise manifested itself. His ranking grew until his fateful fall in Rome. An injury that nearly cost him his career, but gave him valuable time with his dying father.

Since that injury, James has played a much more relaxed game. It has given his game a chance to flow. That was supposed to be the first step. He was supposed to follow that up with good shot selection and point construction. It never happened. 

Despite his wild shot selection, James' play continued to improve, while his backhand developed into a weapon, as well as the return of serve.

The turning point match for James was the 2005 U.S. Open quarterfinal night match. He raced to a dominating two sets to love lead on one of the legends of the sport, Andre Agassi. Unfortunately for Blake he was not able to close it out, despite some brilliant play in the fifth set. It was a match that could have been a passing of the torch moment, just like the opportunity that Andy had against Sampras in '02. James put up a better showing, but like Andy, came up short.

Even though James' ranking would rise better than 20 spots and creep into the top five, he was never closer to winning a major than he was in 2005—up two sets to love against a 35-year-old aging champion with Robbie Ginepri waiting in the semifinal.

I think that match is a microcosm of the career of James Blake: Close but no cigar. What is tough to swallow is that James gives the impression that he's just happy to be ranked somewhere in the top 20.

Even though he spent multiple years in the top 10, he gives the impression that it was all icing on the cake. When you've dealt with death, and stared paralysis in the face, a battle on the tennis court seems a lot less significant. He never really expected to get this far and is happy to have achieved what he has.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that when you have broken your neck, simply walking is seen as a gift, let alone returning to a career as a professional tennis player. He has every right to be thankful for what he has.

But, James Blake isn't an average talent. He isn't a guy that grinds and claws his way into the top 100 and hovers around that ranking for his entire career. James Blake has top 10, even top five caliber talent. He is a rare combination of a shot maker and a great athlete.

You have to wonder, was he ever told how good he was growing up? I understand that Brian Barker has been with James since he was a kid. James trusts him and will probably never have another coach. The man is a grade A person. But I see Brian Barker's demeanor—his docile "give it your best, and its OK" demeanor best suited to high school sports—and I can't help but think that someone more like a Brad Gilbert, even a Darren Cahill or a Roger Rasheed, would have gotten Blake further.

First off, no coach worth his salt should have ever tolerated James' go-for-broke-at-all-times strategy. The man has no plan B. It seems as if he's never been taught how to manage his shots, and that points back to coaching.

James Blake has the shot making and the athleticism of a consistent top five player, if only he knew how to measure his game.

Look at Andre Agassi and once he put some good coaching into his game and learned how to harness it. Take Fernando Gonzalez now versus Fernando Gonzalez five or six years ago.

In my opinion, James Blake, as good as he is, has left more victories on the mat than Andy Roddick. Andy has come close to maximizing his talent. In addition to winning a slam, he's had three runner-up appearances and semifinaled four other times in majors.

He has suffered losses to Federer and Nadal because he's just not as good as they are, but has had relative success against everyone else.

James has lost matches that he has had no business losing at all. If only he could wake up and see how he could better manage his game, he still has time to turn it around. It starts with a new coach.

James is very capable of pulling off a run at the U.S. Open or the Australian Open and winning it. But he can't pull this off by hoping that he hits a hot streak for seven straight matches.

Point construction! That's all it takes.

The past few years have been pretty lean for American tennis, but it's the lean years that allow you to appreciate the abundant ones. If Americans are to reverse their fortunes, it needs to start at the grass roots level. Teaching kids on hard courts puts them at a disadvantage.

Such a large chunk of the schedule is now played on clay. A player can ill afford to go the entire clay court season without picking up a decent amount of points and still expect to be ranked highly.

It has been proven that it is easier and much more likely for a player raised on the dirt to translate his game to hard courts or even grass than vice versa. We need more clay courts in America; we need to get away from this doctrine of attack! attack! attack!

Guys are far too adept at returning today. Our young players need to learn proper point construction. They need to learn to hit every shot well. They need to prep for longer rallies.

This is how America will produce another world number one seed.