The Price of Prodigy: Allen St. John - tennis.com
Allen St. John's recently posted piece on Donald Young doesn't shy away from what he terms "the full-fledged backlash" that Young's hype has caused. It was obviously written before the disappointing Wimbledon Junior result, which is just the latest in a long line of big junior tournaments where he hasn't advanced as far as his seeding. His win at the Easter Bowl in April established that he was still king of the U.S. junior hill, but the age eligibility in Palm Springs eliminated some formidable players who will be eligible to play Kalamazoo next month.
Young is entered, as are these top U.S. juniors who did not play the Easter Bowl, but have instead been playing the Pro Circuit: Alex Clayton, Marcus Fugate, Jesse Levine, Mike McClune, Holden Seguso, Tim Smyczek. In fact five of the eight 2005 quarterfinalists in the 18s are expected to play again this year, drawn by that precious U.S. Open main draw wildcard. Notably absent will be last year's finalist Sam Querrey, who though still age-eligble, has risen over 800 spots in the ATP rankings since last year at this time (to 207) and will almost certainly be given a main draw wild card into the Open. Has Young's progress stalled? His performance in Kalamazoo this year will go a long way toward answering that question.
5 comments:
Collette,
Not sure if you've seen this or have any use of it but here's a link to an open letter written by Mike DePalmer Jnr outlining, as he sees it, the problem with junior development in America. Not very well written but he does raise a few interesting points and might be interesting for the sake of discussion.
http://www.tennisnews.com/exclusive.php?pID=12409
Thanks Andrew, I actually saw it just a few minutes ago. It certainly is worth reading given Mike DePalmer Jr.'s pedigree, but he would have more credibility with me if he spelled Maria Sharapova's name correctly. I believe that he's absolutely right about college coaches being an untapped resource, but I don't know for certain whether the USTA has asked for their input or not.
His nephew is Rhyne Williams.
Has anyone ever been bashed more than Donald Young without merit in the history of junior tennis??? I'll admit I was the first to jump on the Sam Querrey bandwagon 2yrs ago. I had an interview with IMG this spring and I made a comment to them that they need to do everything they can to sign Sam Querrey because he was going to be better than DYJ, but still, how many kids in history were #1 in the world and won a grand slam in the juniors at the ages of 16 and 15?!? He has been advised in a bad way in my opinion, but remember he is still soooo young. People need to seriously start laying off of him because if he reads articles about himself which I hope he doesn't he is going to lose his confidence. Andy Roddick was way behind Donald at that point in his career. Andy lost to Alex Bogomolov in the finals of the 16's at the Zoo when DYJ was winning the 18's at the same age and look how he turned out. Ginepri, Fish and Blake weren't even in the same stratsphere as Young at that age. If Donald doesn't win the Zoo this year writers will rip into him again, he's basically in a lose-lose situation. I just wish the public and media would calm down on this kid and just wait til he can actually grow facial hair to decide whether he will be a successful pro or not.
On a side note, the head of HR at IMG was Sam Querrey's moms sorority sister at Arizona. I wonder how they weren't able to land him. I was shocked when he signed with SFX.
I've seen Young play a few times and was thoroughly unimpressed. You need major weapons to win at the highest levels.
Those weapons can be a big serve ( Roddick), great speed and groundies ( Hewitt), or all around athletic talent and a great game ( Federer and Nadal).
I just don't see any weapons in Young's game.
Glenn Sheiner M.D. author of INSIDER TENNIS STRATEGIES
and a tennis strategy blog at Tennis Online Tips
Hi all
I've recently found out about Colette's site .... really good stuff I'm hooked ... anyway, couldn't agree more with the tennis doctor's comments on Young.
I watched him last year and this year at Junior Wimbledon (I work for Radio Wimbledon) ... and I'm thinking the same things as in '05 .... he has a solid game, but no real weapons.
Reasonable groundies but backhand can be pretty erratic, obviously a real problem wanting to maintain a consistent baseline game. Not comfortable at net yet (although he was trying it more this year, which was one difference) - his first serve's ok but the second isn't good enough and gets picked off too regularly - e.g. his defeat that I watched against Robin Roshardt. You guys'll know that whatever level you're playing at on grass, you need a solid second serve. Young doesn't have that - yet.
I say yet because for all that, it's obvious he still has plenty of time on his side. Austin is spot on to say he's been badly advised, i.e. taking wildcards into main ATP Masters Series events which only end up more often that not in a first round thumping (e.g. Indian Wells, Miami) What does that do for his confidence? Surely better to stick with junior events and as Colette points out - back up those seedings! Rack up the wins - build your game, results and confidence.
I really hope Young steps it up though because he seems like a real nice guy with a good personality (always need more of that on the tour) and he had a lot of interest/people cheering him on (not just american journos!) this year at Wimbledon.
Cheers
Guy
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