US Open: Why is it so difficult to win a second grand slam?
The US Open is one of the few majors in which the top players in the sport are at least as good as they were last year. It’s not a difficult feat, but it has also become a curse.
In any other competition in which you can win a Slam, it’s hard to imagine what would happen if you lost.
Here we take a look back at the major’s longest, most successful drought, and why it is so rare for a player to win a second Grand Slam title.
The US Open’s second, and most recent, Grand Slam is by far the longest and most successful since the tournament was awarded a championship for the first time in 1938. The Open is, by far, the longest and most successful in terms of number of titles. The men’s event has, by far, the most total number of titles of any major. The Open has only been won by three players to win back-to-back titles. That’s far short of the seven winners of the U.S. Open (Lendl, Golob, McEnroe, McEnroe, McEnroe, and Connors) who have won the event back-to-back-to-back.
The best second-place finishers have won the US Open four times; McEnroe, McEnroe, Connors, and Lendl. But only Lendl and McEnroe have won it back-to-back-to-back.
McEnroe is one of only two men on that list. The other? Lendl, who has won the Open five times.
All three have succeeded at the US Open after being defeated by Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.
When the Open started in 1938, McEnroe had just won the Australian Open, and his two wins at Wimbledon were followed by three losses to Sampras. Now, it is McEnroe’s turn to lose. He was to face Sampras, then Agassi in 2000.
Lendl was coming off of only two losses in Grand Slams when he won at the Open during a stretch in which he won all