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2007-11-19 09:35:00
Over the past five years, Donald Young has been one of the most hyped junior tennis players ever. The leftie with the good hands burst onto the world wide tennis scene in 2005, when he won the Australian Open juniors at the mere age of 15. This, in addition with a million dollar contract with Nike and the thumbs up from John McEnroe, made a lot of people go crazy. This guy was supposed to be the next big thing in the world of tennis, possibly even the Tiger Woods of tennis. The people at IMG were very eager to throw him into the mix with the ATP players, and before his sixteenth birthday Young had already been given main draw Wild Cards to six ATP tournaments and one Grand Slam event, losing each and every time in straight sets.
I watched some of those matches, and it was very apparent that it was complete madness to throw this young kid in with the big guys. Young was struggling to win matches on the Futures level, but somehow people thought that he was ready to make a giant leap from the lowest professional level to the top level within weeks. That didn't happen and will never happen.
Last year was a tough year for Young's entourage. Having been every ones golden boy a year before, he was suddenly seen as an over-hyped kid who maybe wouldn't even make it to the top 100. However, he was given three main tour Wild Cards and a bunch of Wild Cards to the Challenger level, with two quarterfinal appearances as the top results. His ranking "only" improved from 571 to 484, which wasn't the progress people expected from Young.
It was not until 2007, his last year as a junior, that Young finally got his breakthrough. The ironic thing is that he has not been given as many Wild Cards to the ATP level in 07. He has performed solidly on the Challenger level, winning one title and reaching another four finals. In New Haven, he also managed to get the monkey off his back by winning his prime ATP level match against Amer Delic in the first round. At the US Open, there was some (this time actually justified) Donald Young hype as the teenager battled past Chris Guccione.
When the rankings are released tomorrow, Young will break into the Top 100 at an age of 18 years and 3 months. Looking at the past ten years, nine players have been ranked in the Top 100 by the end of their last year as a junior player. All except two have reached the top 10: Juan Martin Del Potro (only 19 right now) and Sweden's Andreas Vinciguerra.
Juniors ranked in the top 100 by the end of the year, with rankings in parentheses:
2006: Del Potro (92)
2005: Djokovic (78)
2004: Nadal (51)
2003: None
2002: Ancic (89)
2001: None
2000: Coria (88)
1999: Hewitt (25), Federer (64), Vinciguerra (98)
1998: Safin (49), Hewitt (100)
1997: None
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