NEW YORK—Donald Young, who played well in a four-set fourth-round loss to Stan Wawrinka at the U.S. Open, said that he has matured after a very up-and-down career. The former prodigy, now 26, called this tournament a learning experience.
“Really the whole journey I got to learn myself quite a bit and learn what I'm about and what I have in me, what I don't, what I like and what I don't like,” he said. “Just growing up and maturing quite a bit. To go from winning everything to not winning much to having some success to having no success. It's been a lot of back and forth. Just the resilient part for me, because I could have easily stopped a while ago and done something else, gone back to school. I have said a bunch of times I was going to do that.”
Young turned pro in 2004 when he was only 15 years old; he now believes that might have started too early. But despite a losing streak of 17 matches in 2012 and a fluctuating ranking, the world No. 68 is happy being on the tour.
“At the end of the day I don't play tennis for a few days and I miss it. I love tennis,” he said. Without it I don't know what I would do. I'm sure after I'm finished playing professionally I'm going to do something in tennis, as well. And what I dislike the most probably was losing those 14 matches in a row from 15 to like 17.”
Before Young's tournament exit, locker room attendants were premature in sending him off. Young, who came from two sets down to win his third-round match on Saturday, returned the next day to find he had no shoes in his locker.
"Unfortunately, I came to the locker room yesterday and I opened it up and it was clean," he said. "Like a couple shirts missing, all my shoes were gone, and apparently someone said I was out of the tournament so the guys thought I went home. They were taking some souvenirs."
"I was still in three events, as well," Young added, having been in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at that point.
He got a pair from another company to wear for his mixed doubles match with family friend Taylor Townsend. "My mixed doubles partner contacted them and kind of got some shoes. I wore them. I was excited to have something on my feet," the American said.
Eventually, some of the items were returned, with Young saying, "I got a pair of them back. They made it back. They magically appeared back in the locker."
Matt Cronin and Kamakshi Tandon reported on this story.