American male tennis falls further down, with no year-end top-20 players

At the end of 2020, 17 European players were ranked in the year-end top-20, backed by two Canadians Denis Shapovalov and Milos Raonic and one Argentine, Diego Schwartzman.

For the first time since the start of the ATP ranking in 1973, there were no American players in the year-end top-20, falling even further than in the previous years when John Isner took care to avoid that negative milestone. That wasn't possible in the season behind us, though, with nine Americans in the year-end top-100 but none in the top-20.

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John Isner is still the highest-ranked American at 35, securing the top-25 spot after ten victories and two semi-finals in Auckland and Acapulco. Two young guns, Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka joined Isner in the top-40, and they should be the top-ranked Americans in 2021. Fritz lost the Acapulco final to Rafael Nadal and reached the third round at all three Majors. Opelka won the title in Delray Beach and advanced into the last eight at the Cincinnati Masters in August, doing enough for the year-end top-40 spot.

Since 2000, there were eight seasons with one American player in the top-20, usually reserved for John Isner, while their best season came in 2010 when no less than four competitors finished the duties in the exclusive group. After the dominant decade during the 90s, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and young Andy Roddick were the only notable American players in the early 2000s, with things only becoming worse for the greatest nation in our sport's history. Andy Roddick is still the last American male player with a Major trophy, and only three of them have won the Masters 1000 crown since 2009.

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Number of American players on the year-end top-20 list:

2000 - 2
2001 - 3
2002 - 3
2003 - 3
2004 - 3
2005 - 3
2006 - 2
2007 - 2
2008 - 2
2009 - 1
2010 - 4
2011 - 3
2012 - 1
2013 - 1
2014 - 1
2015 - 1
2016 - 1
2017 - 3
2018 - 1
2019 - 1
2020 - /