INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—Donald Young and his mother, Illona, are staying in the hotel room next to mine near Indian Wells. I passed them in the hall last night and gave Donald a quick “good luck” along the way. I knew he was playing Andy Murray, but I avoided adding, “you’re going to need it.”
Through all the racquet throwing, cursing, heavy losing, dubious training, and the general writing off that this most troubled of former prodigies has endured, I’ve always rooted for Young. I profiled him at his parents’ tennis club in Atlanta when he was 15 and on top of the junior world. I thought then that something would have to give if he were ever going to fulfill his considerable potential. The kid who stated that he wanted to win every Slam twice, “just to prove it wasn't a fluke,” ate a pre-practice meal consisting of a burger, fries, and Coke from McDonald’s. During the clinic that his dad ran that day, his intensity level wasn’t any higher than that of the other local boys and girls taking it with him. But even as he cruised around and joked with his friends, I liked his leftiness, his hands, his speed. He had, and still has, a galvanizing game when he’s relaxed and believing in himself. I witnessed it again a couple of months ago in Melbourne, when he hit a running backhand up the line so casually and perfectly that the only possible reaction was to shake your head side to side—so much possibility unrealized.
In beating world No. 5 Andy Murray in straight sets today, Young realized more of his potential today than he ever has before. Asked afterward if it ranked as the biggest win of his career, he wasted no time answering, with an incredulous grin, “By far.” He didn’t even need to bother saying yes. I had also liked Young’s personality when I met him those years ago. He was shy; he did our interview with his head down the whole time, and with his mother right behind him, but he had a natural sense of humor—asked to list his style of play at Kalamazoo one year, he wrote “pusher”—that struggled to get out from underneath that shyness. Very little seems to have changed in the six years since. Today his mother followed him into the interview room, and his humor and shyness were both in evidence as he stopped and started his way through his answers.
Asked whether he was beginning a “second career,” Young said, “I don’t know, I was considered a bust at 17.”
Asked about his recent hit with Pete Sampras in L.A., he said, “He was talking a lot of trash. He called me princess and he talks a lot of stuff. I didn’t know whether to take it serious or not. I was kind of psyched out.” Young has typically been honest to a fault, and I think he wanted to take back the princess line immediately after he said it. But he was also grateful to Sampras for the vote of confidence afterward. “He told me he expected to see good things from me and for me to get better. I took it to heart.”
Sampras saw what a lot of people, most famously John McEnroe, have seen in Young over the years, a world-class talent and a world-class confusion about how to make the most of that talent. The problem is, not much has changed about Young’s game since I saw him in Atlanta six years ago. Young was again honest to a fault again when he admitted—shockingly—that it took him until this winter to realize that he hadn’t been working hard enough. In practice sessions earlier this year in California, Mardy Fish and Sam Querrey, the guy Young beat in the Kalamazoo final way back when, were running him into the ground. Because of that lack of intensity, Young has remained flashy and inconsistent in the extreme. Unable to last physically, he has played against his strengths. Instead of the steady and crafty baseliner he could be, he has too-often tried to force the action when it wasn’t there.
Today, he forced the action again. Murray, morose but not incredibly morose afterward (those are kind of the poles of his personality) said that Young “hit a lot of winners. He gained in confidence I guess from hitting more winners.” Young was especially good in the first-set tiebreaker, when he took over a few key points with his bullet forehand. Bigger than any of his problems, of course, has been his head. If Young gets down early, he immediately starts to think that bad things are in store for him again. Maybe, if he really does believe he that he hasn’t been working hard enough all these years, it was because he started to think that he was getting what he deserved. “I’ve been in this position a couple of times with a few players and had not won the match,” Young said. “I just told myself this time I was going to see it through and not let the nerves get the best of me.”
Of course, Young has struggled for far too long to let one good result go to his head. I almost felt bad for him that he felt the need to mention Murray in the second sentence of what should have been a triumphant press conference. Asked about how he had managed to pull off the win, Young said, “I’m sure he didn’t play his best today.”
Murray was, indeed, not at his best. “Um, most of it was not great today," he said while pawing at his hair. "I didn’t serve well. I didn’t move well.” Murray has lost seven straight sets since the Aussie Open semifinals, and he looked lost and directionless today. There was a lot of hitting but much of the craftsmanship and point construction you expect from Murray. It appears that he’s repeating his 2010 post-Melbourne swoon.
Still, credit Young for making Murray pay for his mediocrity. Most of us expected him to cave in the second set, but he won going away, breaking Murray in the final game. What this means for the future is anyone’s guess, though Young seemed ready, anyway, to believe. As Murray noted afterward, consistency, from shot to to shot and match to match, has never been Young’s strong suit. But, for as long as he’s been around and as many losses as he's taken—this was the first time he's won back to back ATP matches since 2008—Young at 21 has time.
The future is there, and it starts with another tough match, against Tommy Robredo in the next round. But today Young had more to celebrate than he ever has in his career, and he knows now that he can beat an elite player.
Young was asked how long it took for his phone to “blow up” after the match.
“It was blowing up when I shook his hand,” Young said. “When I looked at it, a lot of messages.” Then he tempered the celebration with one more too-honest, and very sad, line. “I’m happy people were watching and actually care.”
Good luck, Donald. You’ll still need it. But it's good to be able to care again.