NEW YORK (Reuters) - American tennis players have often approached clay with the same fear in which Superman viewed Kryptonite, but U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe believes the surface is the key to unearthing the next American champion.
"If you develop players more on clay...they will become better all court players, even ...better fast court players," McEnroe said during a conference call on Tuesday.
"The way the game has changed with the technology, the rackets, the strings, the athleticism and the speed you have to learn how to build the point and play with spin, play with angle, take the ball early. You basically have to do it all.
"We're not teaching our players to be clay courters. We're not going to change into a clay court nation anytime soon.
"But we certainly feel it is a huge part of the developmental process for kids to become all-round players."
Mired in a Grand Slam dry spell, the last grand slam singles title won by an American man was the 2003 U.S. Open victory by Andy Roddick, the country is unlikely to see their drought end in Paris when the French Open starts later this month.
It has been a decade since Andre Agassi triumphed at Roland Garros and nearly two decades since Jim Courier won back-to-back titles in 1991-92.
While McEnroe would like to see younger players embrace more of the clay court game he acknowledges it comes at the expense of the attacking, aggressive style favored by Americans on the lightning quick hardcourts.
"Most of our great American players are attacking players, we don't want to take that away as our mentality," said McEnroe.
"We want to keep that. But at the same time we want our kids to know how to build points better, use the all the court better and how to be fitter.
"If you play on clay you will automatically get fitter because you play more balls and you have to create more shots rather than going for broke all the time."
DOMINANCE ERODES
Once a dominant presence on the ATP Tour, the U.S. has seen that dominance erode in recent years with just five men among the world's top-80 and two, Roddick and James Blake, inside the top-25.
The USTA has invested close to $15 million a year in regional training centers and coaching initiatives to help find and develop players to arrest that slide.
"The rest of world has caught up," said McEnroe. "We believe we've been lacking in having a systematic approach to how we teach our kids overall, a coaching philosophy.
"We're reaching out to as many coaches with the philosophy we have when it comes to understand how to play tennis as opposed to how to hit the ball.
"I don't believe that you can necessarily create a champion but you can create an environment where you're setting yourself up to find champions easier.
"We're trying to find players we think can become legitimate professionals and we believe that in the long run the more players you have there the better chance you are going to have finding the next Pete Sampras."
(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
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