It wasn’t about the tweet, really. It wasn’t even about the F-bomb. That was, as Patrick McEnroe asserted, just the tip of the iceberg. This was more about what the USTA Player Development czar deems a continual show of disrespect.
Moments after falling to fellow American Tim Smyczek 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 in the final of the six-player USTA French Open Wildcard Playoffs on Friday in Boca Raton, Fla., Donald Young sent out an incendiary, for-adult-eyes-only tweet aimed at Mr. McEnroe and his Player Development staffers.
It read (our censored version): “F— USTA!! Their full of s—! They have screwed me for the last time! #enoughsaid.”
Young, 21, had fallen short of earning a main-draw wildcard for Roland Garros. But he strongly felt that, after upsetting world No. 4 Andy Murray in Indian Wells, capturing a Challenger title in Tallahassee and moving back into the top 100, he shouldn’t have to play for one at all. He felt the USTA should have stepped up and offered him one.
Young later apologized for the language of his tweet, but not the intent. And McEnroe fired back on Monday afternoon, using a hastily organized teleconference as a forum to vent his frustration.
“I’m offended,” said McEnroe. “I’m offended for the people on our team that have worked very hard to try to help Donald, because when he said what he said about them, I think it was taken quite personally by a lot of members of the Player Development team. I think that Donald should apologize for what he said. I think at that point we can move on.”
“We feel like we’ve really gone above and beyond to try to help him in what has always been a tricky situation,” added McEnroe. “We would like to at least feel like, ‘Hey, thanks for helping me out, thank you.’ Unfortunately, we haven’t heard that enough — if at all.”
McEnroe went to great length in detailing the help the USTA has provided dating back to 2005, long before he had taken over as GM of Player Development. There was the one-on-one work with a variety of USTA coaches and strength/conditioning specialists, including Jose Higueras, Jay Berger, David Nainkin, Michael Sell, Ricardo Acuña, Hugo Armando, Rodney Marshall and Satoshi Ochi. There were the wildcards (13 U.S. Open wildcards alone in singles and doubles). There were the hotel stays and the coast-to-coast trips to USTA Training Centers in Carson, Calif., and Boca Raton, Fla., not to mention an unspecified (“substantial”) amount of grant money. What did it all cost Young? According to McEnroe, not a thin dime.
But the relationship between the USTA and Young family has ever been the most compatible one. In 2009, the Chicago-born lefthander claimed that McEnroe & Co. told him that the support from White Plains would all but evaporate if he didn’t break away from the cocoon-coaching of his parents — Illona and Donald, Sr. —who, for better or worse, have never let their son wander too far beyond their grasp.
Said Young, who reached a career-high No. 73 in 2008 but is a disappointing 16-48 at the ATP Tour level since turning pro seven years ago, “Where I come from, the family is a pretty big thing.”
However, in his book “Hardcourt Confidential,” McEnroe denied ever having tried to crop Donald’s parents out of his career picture. Wrote PMac, “[It’s] the one thing I knew not to do, even though it’s at the heart of the issue.” What McEnroe says he did write was that the USTA had been more than flexible with Young through the years, but that in order for him to take the next step he would need to leave the family compound in Atlanta and come train with the USTA on a more full-time basis. His parents, Mac said, were welcomed to join him, but he made it clear that the USTA coaches would be calling the shots.
And last year, Young wondered aloud (also via Twitter) why the lower ranked Ryan Harrison got the nod over him to represent his country in Colombia. Asked Young, “Patrick just please answer that one for me?…your last decision as davis cup captain is this? no disrespect to harrison at all!…i just want to know if its based off of ranking and performance why harrison gets chosen for the 4 man davis cup team before me???”
What’s odd is that, in February, Young seemed to praise Player Development’s tough-love doctrine, saying that its five-hours-on-court/two-hours-in-the-gym/six-days-per-week regimen was beginning to pay dividends. “When I’m home, I work hard,” he said, “but it’s not as consistent if you don’t have someone on you all the time.” He even likened it to boot camp, telling Inside Tennis, “It feels like it, but that’s the way it probably should be.”
“We deal with a lot of different scenarios. Most of the time, if not all the time, we keep it internal, we try to deal with it,” said McEnroe on Monday. “We understand there’s coaches involved, whether they’re personal coaches, whether they’re parents, et cetera. We want to do the best we can for there to be a two-way street. We’re not going to sit here and dictate everything that has to be done. At the same time we’re not going to be dictated to either.”
“We’re trying to help the player,” he continued. “We understand that we can all have differing views on how to get that done. We think we know what we’re doing, okay? I know some people don’t think we know what we’re doing. We think we do. We’re proud of what we’re doing. We see the players we’re working with are getting better. We’re going to continue to do that. We’re going to continue to make decisions that are best for our program. If someone is coming in and saying, ‘No, you guys make Donald practice too much,’ at some point that becomes troubling.”
The USTA had briefly considered hosting an abbreviated two-man playoff between Young and Harrison, who had posted the best results of any rising Americans in the past six months, but opted to stick with its original plan in Boca Raton. And, in truth, that might be the heart of the matter. Should we really be in the business of dolling out wildcards? As The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke pointed out, in a sense, the McEnroe-Young incident reflects a broader culture of entitlement among young, gifted American athletes. Does it have something to do with their struggle to keep up with a global gathering of players who seem hungrier and more determined?
“I think it absolutely does,” said McEnroe. “We’re trying in our own way to effect some change in the culture amongst our young players, the parents that are out there, everybody that’s out there involved in junior tennis. This is our little world. We’re passionate about it. We’ve got people that care. We’ve got people that show up on weekends to work with the kids because we care…We’re doing our part. This is a small way…to try to send a message to our players and to everybody out there that you need to earn what you get.”
“There’s some out there that think the USTA shouldn’t even have a program, just blow it up, take all the money and give it out. I don’t believe that. I believe that we can make a difference. I believe that we are making a difference.”
McEnroe stopped short of saying that the USTA would withdraw its support of Young, and even underlined his obvious potential, but it’s hard to imagine that the relationship will ever be the same.
“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,” McEnroe explained. “But you can’t go halfway. You need to be all in. He’s not totally all in. Again, 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. But what he did publicly is unacceptable to me and to our program.”
