Donald Young has apologized to USTA Player Development head Patrick McEnroe, as well as USTA coaches Jay Berger, and David Nainkin, the LA Times reports.
On Monday, McEnroe held a conference call to discuss Young’s expletive-laden tirade against the USTA on Twitter after he was not granted an automatic wild card for the French Open and then fell in the final of the USTA wild card playoff to Tim Smyczek.
McEnroe was clearly upset on the call, not only because of the content of what Young said but because, as he pointed out, the USTA has provided Young with free coaching, housing, grant money and a slew of wildcards since 2005. Moreover, he was upset because he believes that his coaching staff has put in a tremendous effort to help the 22-year-old.
"My emotion is not coming from my personal opinions," McEnroe said. "It's coming from the people on my staff, our team, that have gone above and beyond to try to help Donald Young, and not just him, but all the players we try to help. Again, we can go back and debate whether you like our program. You can do a referendum on me and my run in another two, three years. Kick me out the door if you don't like the results. I get that. I understand the position. I understand the responsibility. But I also understand what my team is doing on a daily basis, and I don't like what I heard. I don't like my team being put in that situation based on all they've done. I do take it personally, but I take it personally because of who I am in my position in this team."
It is unclear whether Young, who has worked a lot with Berger, Nainkin and USTA physical trainer Rodney Marshall, will continue to seek USTA help. He and his representatives have yet to have yet to accept requests for interviews. Moreover, his father Donald Sr., and his mother, Illona, are both still in the picture as their son's coaches. Both are teaching pros. It was Donald Young Sr. who requested the wild card for his son after Donald won the Tallahassee Challenger.
However, McEnroe left the door to working with the 98th-ranked Young again as long as he apologized, and apparently he did.
"I'm a pretty positive guy," McEnroe said. "Every time Donald has come and worked with our team, he's been an absolute delight. When he comes, he does what we tell him to do. He goes with the program. He's gotten better and stronger. There's no doubt in my mind that he can get a lot better and become a Top 50, Top 30, maybe even a Top 20 player. But you can't go halfway. You need to be all in. He's not totally all in. If he doesn't want to be with us, if he wants to keep his parents as his coaches, go in with someone else, we wish him all the luck in the world and we'll try to help him...I'm not going to say we're going to withdraw support. But I'm going to say a lot of things are going to have to happen for us to reconsider."—Matthew Cronin