Was the U.S. Open really in any mortal danger before Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz made their unexpected marches to the women’s and men’s championship finals over the weekend? It was the first time in 23 years that both a U.S. man and U.S. woman played for U.S. titles, but was that rarity—two homies simultaneously at last getting close to a trophy—illustrative of the tournament’s atrophy?

Neither Pegula, sixth seed among the women, nor the men’s No. 12 Fritz ever had been past a major tournament quarterfinal before, so shopworn story lines were trotted out as they advanced unexpectedly through the 2024 draw. Those decades-old themes, of the forlorn state of American men’s tennis and the regularly disappointing search for another Serena Williams, merely were paused when Coco Gauff won last year.

For the women, there hardly has been the kind of drought that the men, so long depicted as on a tennis desolation row, have experienced. No U.S. female reached the final between 2002 and ’07, but Serena Williams enjoyed a three-year run as champ from 2012 to 2014 and was runner-up in both ’17 and ’18. And Sloane Stephens claimed the title in ’17. All that, while Andy Roddick was the last American man before Fritz to reach the U.S. championship match, in 2006, as well as the last U.S. male to win it, in ’03.

Still, any lament that the Open suffered from lack of Yankee dominance not only has been overdone but unsubstantiated. As this year’s tournament commenced with the highest seeds coming from Italy (Jannick Sinner), Serbia (Novak Djokovic), Spain (Carlos Alcaraz), Germany (Alexander Zverev)—and, among the women, Poland (Iga Swiatek) and Belarus (Aryna Sabalenka)—a record average of more than 75,000 fans descended daily on the tournament during the first of its two weeks. By the end, more than a million had attended the Open for the first time, even as ticket prices soared to more than $8,000 for a courtside seat.

Open officials, with little expectation of an American player presence on the final weekend, rolled out their first Finals Fan Fest. That offered $28 tickets just to be on the National Tennis Center grounds on the final Saturday and Sunday to attend a watch party at the No. 2 court, Louis Armstrong Stadium, while the championship action proceeded in already sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium next door.

So the adversity of the Open failing to guarantee an American champion has not been the least bit adverse. The event is one of those American spectacles that lures the In Crowd and In-Crowd wannabes, a place to be seen as well as to see. Furthermore, international tennis—being an individual sport—is personality-driven, celebrity stuff. So, while an added buzz indeed accompanied Pegula and Fritz right through their runner-up finishes, a player’s drawing power at the Open historically has been related more to his or her on-court success and style than country of origin.

The Open, contested on the grounds of the 1939 and 1964 Worlds Fairs, is just that—a world’s fair.

For two decades, Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Spain’s Rafael Nadal were virtual rock stars at the Open as, in the 1990s, were women’s favorites Steffi Graf (Germany) and Monica Seles (who played for her native Yugoslavia before becoming an American citizen). Just as true, more recently, were fan favorites Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark), Maria Sharapova (Russia) and Japan’s Naomi Osaka, the 2018 and 2020 U.S. champ.

Even the athletes themselves in fact are drawn to heroes and heroines with backgrounds and homelands quite foreign to them. Federer once said that his tennis inspiration came “from all around the world, and that was cool,” citing Sweden’s Stefan Edberg and Germany’s Boris Becker. Pete Sampras, the California-raised five-time U.S. Open champ, cited Australian Rod Laver as his example of greatness. And Stephens, a Black woman like the Williams sisters who called them “two of the greatest players ever to play the game of tennis,” nevertheless had Belgian Kim Clijsters as her childhood idol.

So, good for Pegula and Fritz for reviving something of an American tennis dream at the latest edition of the Open. They surely warmed the hearts of U.S. television executives by staying around so long. But the idea that only American champions keep New York’s Grand Slam tournament alive and healthy, or assure a flood of future elite players from the States—that success breeds success and fuels a nation’s thriving sports tradition—is only true until it isn’t.

The U.S. Open is doing just fine. Tickets for the 2025 tournament already are on sale.