NEW YORK—Donald Young, who came from two sets down to beat No. 11 Gilles Simon in the first round of the U.S. Open, says that he is reading self-help books to help himself improve mentally. The 26-year old is now 6-10 lifetime at Flushing Meadows, but until Tuesday he had never came back from two sets down.
“It's just a bunch of reading, listening, going back over tapes, talking to people that used to be around that were good and winning a lot of matches, and just combining all of those matches and talking to people,” he said. “I have had some help with the mental aspect part before, so going over those notes and actually having that in the forefront of your mind really helps, because you can kind of forget.”
Currently ranked No. 68, the American fared well at the ATP 250s in February, reaching the semifinals in Memphis and the final in Delray Beach. Last month at the ATP 100 Masters Series tournament in Montreal, he qualified and upset Tomas Berdych before losing to Ernests Gulbis in the third round.
Young sees his attitude as key to how he does on court. "I love self-help books. I spent a lot of time reading those. It was pretty much what it was. It's all mental for me," Young said. "I feel like tennis is pretty much all mental and it's always been mental for me, because I could play and the skills weren't really the issue. It was between the ears and it was dealing with adversity.”