Whilst browsing through this week's tennis blogs I found an interesting one Nina Rota on the state of U.S. tennis.

Rota started by bemoaning the crowd's support of American James Blake against Kei Nishikori in the recent ATP event at Delray Beach. Nishikori became the first Japanese player to win a singles title in 16 years, which deserved a mention in itself, but Rota's real point was that the American crowd failed to get behind Blake, ho has come through so much adversity to bounce back and appear in any final.

However after a few paragraphs Rota got to the point, and what a good point it was, that Nick Bollettieri, the famous tennis trainer was in fact helping aid the downfall of American tennis.

In a nutshell Rota's point was that by bringing in so many Eastern Europeans Bollettieri was making champions, but at the same time restricting America's chances in tournaments.

Rota rounded things off by claiming that after Blake, Andy Roddick, 'whats left' of the Williams sisters and Lindsey Davenport, there is'nt much left for American tennis, oh and then she tried to claim Sharapova was really an American.

Excuses? Sounds alot like it. But she has a point. Bollettieri is coaching foreigners and making them better than his own, but he is after all a coach, and can you blame him for wanting to coach the best?

It seems the dog eat dog commercial nature of American sport has finally caught up with them, at least within tennis. Whats left of the sport, Blake, Roddick, the Williams sister and Davenport still aint bad though is it?