Player development: differences by nation [series]

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As much as the LTA is working hard on its club structure, there are those with experience in the pro game who point out that clubs are still not providing enough variety in the surfaces they offer their players.

“For most clubs it’s economically sensible to have carpet courts with sand in them, but that means that most of our kids are growing up on a surface that bears no relation to the tour,” says Alan Jones, who currently coaches Baltacha and who coached the most accomplished British woman of recent years, former world No. 5 Jo Durie – who’s last match was at Wimbledon 10 years ago, fully 18 years after Virginia Wade became the last Brit to win a Wimbledon singles title.

“That’s why our competitive base is so poor,” Jones explains. “Grass is mostly gone. There isn’t much clay, except for a couple of schools and clubs, yet that’s what everyone plays on. When you look at Spain, the competition base is absolutely huge. Whenever you go to tournaments in Italy, France, Germany, all their clubs have clay courts. There are hundreds of players out there for whom clay is a way of life. Thirty-five years ago, there were three grass court majors and everything was about grass. The whole tennis world has changed, and here we are in England with tin pot clubs with outmoded surfaces and a governing body tat is forever frustrated by that issue.”

If grass court tennis is the UK’s obsession, then it’s hardly surprising, given the grip that Wimbledon has on the nation’s consciousness. To most people with no more than a passing interest in the sport, tennis is played four years a year in June and July, and Tim Henman is a perpetual failure for not winning Wimbledon. They have little grasp of an 11-month professional circuit of mostly slow hard court and clay events, where Henman has done extraordinarily well to remain in the world’s Top 20 for most of the last decade.

That means that interest in tennis wanes when the population is not seeing wall-to-wall Wimbledon coverage across two BBC channels and in the pages of their national newspapers. Sky TV has the rights to the ATP Masters Series events, but shows tennis mostly on its strictly minority channel, Sky Sports Extra, which not all Sky subscribers can access. While Sky’s rival, Eurosport, has the rights to Roland Garros and some of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, it still means a short drop in audience figures between Wimbledon and the rest of the tennis year.

Increasingly, the number of players and giving them places to play is only part of the challenge for the LTA. Like many tennis nations, the UK has yet to solve the problem of talented teenagers drifting away from the sport once the distractions of adolescence begin and they are interesting in other things apart from practice and the gym.

From 2006, those that the LTA can hang on to will have a state-of-the-art National Tennis Centre in which to train. The £40 million ($73.4 million) academy will have 16 outdoor courts, six indoor courts, a fully-equipped gym, and sport science and medical facilities. Felgate, who pitched the National Tennis Centre concept, is planning to have 600 elite players between the ages of 9 and 22 training there once it is up and running.

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“My job is to put British tennis in a healthy state,” says Felgate, “so when you go to a Grand Slam (tournament), you are not just watching one or two British players; you are watching four or five in the main draw. When we get to that state, then the trickle down effect will be enormous.”

With a governing body that is awash with money and so desperately trying to create the perfect environment to help them shine, there should be no reason why Henman’s successor should have to struggling alone in the world.

“There is god intent and potential and loads of good ideas,” says Jones. “And they (the LTA) seem to be (firmer) with the players who don’t work as hard.”

Henman himself says there is immediate cause for hope in the shape of 18-year-old US Open junior champion Andrew Murray. But with the wisdom of an old pro, he warns against expecting too much from just one player.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how Andy does because he’s much better than I was at his age,” says Henman. “He’s got all the tools, and if you compare him with the other prospects, he’s in a different class. But there are no guarantees. It comes down to steel. That’s the key ingredient. The LTA rightly took some of the blame for the fact that no one else has followed me, but it’s too easy to say, ‘Oh, it’s the system.’ Far too little blame is pointed at the players. They should take responsibility.”

Until that happens, and British tennis enjoys the revival that the LTA insists is just around the corner, Henman will continue to shoulder that responsibility alone.

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Supplement: Changing the Profile of Tennis in Scotland
by John Officer

Tennis Week print magazine
June 21, 2005
pgs 64-65

Scotland is well known for breathtaking landscapes, single malt scotches and the famed St. Andrews golf course. Contrast that to the world’s relative ignorance of the country’s claim to the oldest tennis court in the world – the “real tennis” court at Falkland Palace in Fife. However, the North Country’s low tennis profile in the world may soon rise dramatically, thanks to the emergence of numerous young players, as well as the energy, commitment and resourcefulness of Tennis Scotland.

The sport’s national governing body exists on financing of approximately £1 million ($1.8 million), with less than half coming from a subsidy by the LTA (which has a mission to support tennis throughout England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland), another significant amount from SportsScotland (a quasi-governmental funding and strategic agency) and the remainder from a variety of local government and even smaller, miscellaneous sources. With that budget, the organization oversees the game’s development in nearly 200 tennis clubs throughout nine “districts” and among approximately 26,000 “registered” players in a country of just over 5 million – less than 10 percent of the United Kingdom’s population. The federation also oversees the Gannochy National Tennis Centre at Stirling University and licenses about 140 coaches at three levels of expertise. According to newly appointed Tennis Scotland CEO Jim Campbell, “There has been quite a bit of investment [in the sport] over the last number of years,” although, he adds, not in the same league as a country like France. And he looks forward to continued investment, describing the needs for growth of Scottish tennis as dependent on additional capital investment – in partnership with the LTA, SportsScotland and as many as 30 local authorities.

Although the northern latitude can allow for evening play without floodlight in the summer until 11 pm, Tennis Scotland faces challenging weather in addition to the relative shoestring budget. Spring and summer daytime temperatures often don’t get out of the 60s, and rain often falls two days out of three. Unfortunately, again related to money issues, there is a relative paucity of indoor courts, an estimated 50-100 for the entire country. With little history, few places to play and financing concerns, it is no wonder that Director of Tennis Mat Hulbert and others are concerned that in order to attract the crème of the country’s athletes the sport needs a higher profile than more traditional favorites soccer, rugby and cricket. Paradoxically, achieving that higher profile and inspiring future generations depends on how well players are developed now.

On a recent day, Hulbert was overseeing junior programs at a club on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The enthusiasm of tennis’s future and the need for more courts was immediately apparent from watching the juniors train. Sixty players spread themselves over six courts. Mini-tennis was played on one court broken into several smaller courts using mini racquets and foam balls – a part of the national program until the confidence and strength are sufficient to move forward. Elsewhere, despite the numbers that might force too much standing and waiting in other programs, drills kept the students constantly in motion.

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“In motion” might be the hallmark of Scottish tennis right now, following current favorite son Andrew Murray, the 2004 US Open boy’s champ and a junior No. 1 seed and semifinalist at 2005 Roland Garros. Of course, while Andrew Murray receives the major share of attention, Scotland has also supported Great Britain’s tennis by sending off his older brother Jamie, who reached a junior ranking high of No. 40 in 2004 and is now traveling the futures tour, as well as the country’s No. 7, Alan Mackin, and the British women’s No. 1 Elena Baltacha and No. 8 Karent Paterson. Both Mackin and the younger Murray, who successfully teamed with David Sherwood in doubles during Britain’s Davis Cup defeat of Israel, were awarded wildcards into the Wimbledon singles main draw.

While Campbell will not comment directly on player subsidies, referring to it as an “emotional topic,” he does describe a patchwork of subsidies that Scottish players have to put together to achieve in the world of tennis, with elements of funding coming from Tennis Scotland, directly from the LTA or SportsScotland. Andrew Murray, for example, grew up training in Scotland, but Tennis Scotland decided to give Andrew some flexibility over the past year and paid for him to train in Barcelona at the Sanchez Academy. In supporting Murray overseas, Tennis Scotland may be opening up an interesting divide in British Tennis. Ross Matheson, a Glasgow native and a former Top 300 touring professional who took advantage of the US college system, playing tennis for Oklahoma and Arizona State, described how actions on behalf of both Murray brothers may have established a new paradigm for Scottish player development, particularly until there are better-trained native coaches able to help more players make the next step.

As for Mackin, who last month became the first Scottish player in nine years to claim the Scottish Open Tennis Championships, the 22-year-old has taken a much more confrontational approach to the sport’s various governing organizations. He complains that the LTA is too inflexible, insisting he follow a hard court and grass court schedule, rather than exploit his predilection for clay; the ATP is interested in maintaining an “elite club” of top players; and Scottish Tennis chose to back the Murrays over him.

Mackin and his struggles with the national federation appear to be something of an anomaly within the generally supportive world of Scottish tennis. However the general sense of goodwill should not be interpreted to mean there are no winds of political infighting. Although Campbell is adamant that there is an improving relationship with the LTA (all part of the “Team GB” concept), the potential certainly exists for a rift between the independent Scots and British tennis as a whole. John Howie, coach of several touring pros and the first full-time club pro in Scotland, went so far as to say the time might be right for Scottish Tennis to break away from the LTA.

Whatever happens in its dealings with the rest of Great Britain – or the world, for that matter – Tennis Scotland seems to be creating a genuine bond within its own structure. Graeme Dyce, a 15-year-old currently ranked No. 839 among world juniors and the presumed prodigy next in line after Murray, described the situation in a recent article for The (Glasgow) Herald, sharing his hopes of trading in the vagaries of the Scottish weather for the climactic constants of training at Nick Bollettieri’s Florida academy: “Everybody pulls together up here in Scotland, which is the way it should be. It’s pretty tough in up Scotland and you have to travel down to England a lot, go a long way for games, and that makes us tougher than the English. The regime here is better, and I think we are tougher and better players because of it.”


John Officer, head tennis coach at the US Naval Academy, was supported in his research by an Academy grant. His last Tennis Week article was “The Reigning of Spain Begins Mainly with the Training” in the April 19, 2005 issue.

[TennisHack]

Throughout this year, Tennis Week is examining the player development efforts of various countries worldwide, including those with a long history of great players and those hoping to establish a tradition that future generations will admire and uphold. This is the sixth installment in the series.


From Nestor…To Bester
In a land where hockey is religion, Canada hangs onto hope for a tennis messiah
by Tom Tebbutt

Tennis Week print magazine
July 19, 2005
pgs 44-47


Like a fleeting shard of Northern Lights in the Canadian tennis firmament, only once has tennis truly galvanized the interest of sports followers in the nation to the north. It was the night of Jan. 31, 1992, in the heart of a harsh Canadian winter, when people from coast to coast watched their television screens in amazement as one of their own defeated the world’s No. 1-ranked player, Stefan Edberg.

Daniel Nestor was a wan, languid 19-year-old left-hander with a dancing serve and wondrous touch at the net when he upset Edberg 4-6 6-3 1-6 6-3 6-4 in Vancouver to give Canada a 2-0 lead in its first round Davis Cup World Group tie in Sweden. Unfortunately for the Canadians, Edberg, jet-lagged after losing the Australian Open final to Jim Courier five days earlier, revived and the Swedes prevailed 3-2 as Magnus Gustafsson beat Nestor in a hard-fought five sets in the decisive fifth rubber.

But Nestor’s promise and stylish game had struck a chord with sports fans beyond the tennis hard course, and he was soon dropping the puck at the ceremonial face-off before a Toronto Maple Leafs game and generally being feted and targeted for great things.

Indeed, Nestor developed into a fine professional and probably played, in 2003, the best matched ever by a Canadian, at least in the estimation of ex-Davis Cup captain and former national coach Josef Brabenec, when he beat Gustavo Kuerten in five dazzling sets on slick indoor carpet in Calgary in Davis Cup. But he did not become the tennis idol needed to incite youngsters from Newfoundland to British Columbia to pick up Wilsons, Babolats and Heads and try to crunch and caress volleys the way he could.

The evolutionof the game in recent decades has demonstrated the enormous effect one superstar/national hero can have in terms of inspiring succeeding generations, assuming the role of une locomotive, as former Top 100 player Rejean Genois of Montreal used to put it. Bjorn Borg in Sweden, Guillermo Vilas in Argentina, Yannick Noah in France, and Jan Kodes and Ivan Lendl in the former Czechoslovakia are the best examples. “The star player who will create that interest and desire among young kids to play the game has to be a male,” insists Brabenec, now 71 and still a coaching influence on the international scene. “It just does not seem to work if it’s a woman.”

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For Canadians, that rules out Carling Basset-Seguso, who reached No. 8 in the world in 1985, and Helen Kelesi who made it to No. 13 in 1989-90.

Nestor won nearly $625,000 last year and has been in the half-a-million a year range for nine years. But that is almost all from doubles, not the glamour event likely to attract youngsters to the sport in a country where hockey is a virtual religion, even in a year when the NHL is a no-go. There are 386 jobs for Canadian players in the NHL (based on the 2003-2004 season), at an average salary of $1.5 million a year. Compare that to Nestor in 2004 (the next highest-earning Canadian was Frank Dancevic at $59,405) and it is obvious why parents get up at 5 am or 6 am to drive kids to hockey games and practices, dreaming their sons will be the next Rick Nash, Joe Sakic or Martin Brodeur.

With the exponential increase in women’s hockey in Canada over the past decade, the same may now be said of mothers and fathers hoping their daughters will grow up to be the next Hayley Wickenheiser, Cassie Campbell, or Kim St. Pierre. The latter three were all members of Canada’s gold medal-winning team at the Salt Lake City Olympics and are legitimate stars of the Canadian sports scene. While there is not the money in hockey that there potentially is in tennis, young girls tend to find their role models in successful compatriots. At a time when Canada’s top-ranking women’s players are Marie-Eve Pelletier at No. 106 and Stephanie Duboit at No. 168, making it to Canada’s national women’s hockey team is likely to turn out to be every bit as lucrative as being an outside-the-Top-100 world-class tennis player.

Grant Connell, now married with three children and working in real estate in Vancouver, was the other singles player for Canada in that memorable 1992 Davis Cup match-up against Sweden. Retired since 1997, Connell ranked No. 1 in the world in doubles, No. 67in singles, beat players such as Lendl, Miloslav Mecir and Paul Haarhuis, and played in three Wimbledon doubles finals (1993-94, ’96). He recently joined the board of directors of Tennis Canada. Looking back wistfully today, after eight Grand Slam tournaments in a row without a Canadian male in the singles draw, he says, “Let’s do a little fantasy projection here. Go back to 1990 or so when we had (Chris) Pridham, (Andrew) Sznajder, (Glenn) Michibata, (Martin) Wostenholme and myself – all journeymen players – and (Greg) Rusedski and Nestor and (Sebastien) Lareau coming up. There was one year (1988) when we had four of us in the draw at Wimbledon. Imagine if we’d had that and Rusedski comes up and becomes a Top 10 player from Canada. You never know. Were we in a position where we were savvy enough to take advantage of it? I don’t know.”

On the Tennis Canada board since last fall, Connell, 39, has signed off on a new $2.5 million ($2 million US) Canadian development plan, announced in May, entitled “Pathway to Excellence.” That is a 37 percent increase in the development budget for the sport’s national governing body. The plan puts the emphasis on four main areas: 1. establishing national training centers in Montreal and Toronto, 2. increasing the number of national coaches and part-time national traveling coaches, 3. increasing the number of entry-level ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour events (from three to six for the men and from two to five for the women) and 4. launching 37 tennis development centers across Canada to seek out and attract youngsters to tennis.

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“We looked at what other countries that are successful do,” said Hatem McDadi, a former tour player who is Tennis Canada’s director of development “The Top 10 all have national training centers. France has seven, the Czechs five, Sweden four, Spain one and the Americans two.”

Heading upthe Montreal center at Jarry Park will be Andre Labelle, formerly head of the International Tennis Academy in Delray Beach, Fla., while ex-patriot American Jon Sorbo, a former tour player and current coach of Dancevic, will run the Toronto center on the York University campus.

Tennis Canada is also expected to announce soon an arrangement with a foreign tennis academy so that its players can train abroad, especially during the winter. “We’re looking to have a partnership and relationship, probably in Florida but possibly in Europe,” McDadi said. “It would be so out athletes beyond the national training centers and the clubs in Canada would be able to train in preparation for things such as the heat in Australia or the red clay at the French Open and also benefit from some of the international hitting power that the top places have.”

Summing up, McDadi said, “There’s no reason we can’t have Grand Slam (tournament) champions in singles; we’ve done it in doubles. (Both Nester and Lareau have US Open doubles titles, while Nestor also won the Australian Open). Switzerland can do it, and Sweden can do it.”

The new plan’s goal is aimed at, “Producing Grand Slam, Olympic, and Paralympic champions by 2020.” That is 15 years into the future. Looking back in 15 years, Canada had five men ranked in the Top 200, with Connell and Sznajder in the Top 100. Today there are two Top 200 players: Dancevic at No. 157 and, at No. 181, Frederic Niemeyer, who jumped 36 places after winning the Forest Hills Grass Court Challenger.

Fifteen years ago on the women’s side, there were six women in the Top 200, including Kelesi at No. 17. Today, there are two, with Pelletier the highest ranking at No. 106.

By comparison, there are 22 American men in the Top 200 today, compared to 38 in 1990. There were 54 American women in the Top 200 in 1990, compared to just 24 now. It is obvious that North American players in general are not as prominent as they once were.

An immediate major hurdle for Tennis Canada is paying off the debt resulting from building the $38 million (Canadian), 12,500-seat Rexall Centre in Toronto, which opened last summer. The financing requires more than $3 million in debt payments a year; so there are limited funds available for development, especially since the Canadian Open men’s and women’s events (both called the Rogers Cup) receive nowhere near as much title sponsorship money as they did from Imperial Tobacco before Canadian government anti-smoking legislation (and the ATP’s ill-fated ISL deal) forced out the Montreal-based cigarette maker in 2000. The tournaments, among the top-level events on the respective men’s and women’s tours (the men’s is an ATP Masters Series event, the women’s a Tier I), are the principal revenue generators for Tennis Canada.

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“Michael Downey (Tennis Canada president since May 2004) is very dedicated to development,” Connell said. “I think we’ve put ourselves in a position (with the new plan) where once we’re a bit fiscally stronger, we can pump more money into the kids. It’s a horrible, horrible cliché, but it comes down to money and attracting a lot more people to the game.”

It also comes down to individual initiative, if past history is any indicator. Bassett-Seguso’s father, John Bassett, sent his daughter off to Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Florida when she was 11, and she enjoyed the benefits of a golden era when Jimmy Arias, Aaron Krickstein, and, later, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier were on the courts in Bradenton.

Kelesi’s father, Milan, arrived in Canada from Czechoslovakia penniless, but worked his way up. His drive helped his daughter enjoy a career that was arguably as successful as Basset-Seguso’s.

Rusedski was another product of an ambitious parent. His father, Tom, spared no expense as he steered Greg’s career along – largely outside Tennis Canada’s influence. If he felt Greg needed advice with a certain area of his game, he would bring in a Fred Stolle or a Pancho Seguera to help out.

Connell also acquired a seasoning that was not entirely made-in-Canada. He spent two years at Texas A & M University before venturing onto the pro tour. He admits to once having an inferiority complex vis a vis American rivals. “As a junior, I was always intimidated by Americans,” he said. “I always thought they were better. One of the things that helped me the most was my parents moving to California (they are now back in British Columbia) and me becoming friends with people like Scott Davis and David Pate. I also made a conscious decision to leave Canada and the (Molson-sponsored) national team at that time because I felt Americans had a healthier take on sports. Canadians kind of eat their own, (although) we’re not like that as much anymore.”

Connell was part of generation that included Sznajder, who reached a Canadian men’s ATP ranking high of No. 46 in 1989 (Rusedski was No. 41 in 1994 as a Canadian before getting to No. 4 as a Briton in 1997), as wella s Pridham, Martin Laurendeau, Michibata and Wostenholme.

It is widely accepted that the Canadian-raised Rusedski, Nestor and Lareau made up the most successful generation ever because they were able to feed off each other.

Currently, with the 20-year-old Dancevic stalled in the ranking range above 150, Philip Bester, from Connell’s hometown of Vancouver, is the great new hope. Just 16, the serve-and-volleying Bester has already signed with IMG and its training at Bollettieri’s. Max Eisenbud, best known as the agent for Maria Sharapova, is an unrepentant Bestor booster and claims with complete confidence, “He’s going to be the best player Canada has ever had.”

With Canadian tennis, it’s basically a numbers game. The country’s population is about 10 times less than the United States; so imagining it can produce players on anything like the scale Americans do is a pipe dream.

Still, there is the Pathway to Excellence initiative and always the hope that an engine will come down the track and pull Canadian tennis to newfound glory. Maybe Bestor’s the one.


Tom Tebbutt is a freelance writer whose work often appears in the Toronto Globe & Mail.

[TennisHack]

Throughout this year, Tennis Week is examining the player development efforts of various countries worldwide, including those with a long history of great players and those hoping to establish a tradition that future generations will admire and uphold. This is the seventh installment in the series.

Hold On, They’re Coming
The future for US men’s tennis seems promising…if that’s what you want to believe
By Andre Christopher

Tennis Week print edition
August 29, 2005
Pages 32-36

Mike Sell, five years removed from a pro career that saw him rise to No. 136 in the world in singles, is sitting in the west stands of Stowe Stadium at Kalamazoo (Mich.) College. In his current role as a High Performance coach for USTA Player Development, he is keeping an eye on Wil Spencer, the Stana Rosa Beach, Fla., 15-year-old with the Jay Berger service motion. Spencer is the No. 2 seed in the USTA Boys’ 16 National Championships.

Sell’s body language doesn’t betray any disappointment or, conversely, great satisfaction in what he sees. He is aware of the match, but is not in it. He is insouciant. Looking every bit like a young Kurt Russell, Sell is much the same way about an interview regarding USTA Player Development. He doesn’t shy away from questions about Player Development’s rep for identifying prospects too early and staying with them too long. Nor does he become overly passionate in his empathy for players who develop late, having admitted that the USTA didn’t pay attention to him until his final year in the 18s.

But a particular set of questions nudges him as close as he might be capable of getting to an outburst:

“Where’s our Rafael Nadal? Where’s our Richard Gasquet?”

Sell turns purposefully and answers animatedly: “His name is Andy Roddick. He came up a couple of years ago.”

It is almost as if he has been dying to get that off his chest. And it is in that moment that you understand how a journeyman pro was able to earn the respect of Monica Seles and serve as her coach during the last 18 months in which she was a legitimate Top 10 player.

“Those type of players,” Sell continues, “don’t come out every year. Look at Spain. They had [Carlos] Moya and [Juan Carlos] Ferrero (as legitimate No. 1 players). Then who did they have? They didn’t hav anyone again until Nadal. You have to look at it a bit realistically.”

In other words, yes, maybe things could be better for US men’s tennis. But perhaps it’s not really as bad now as critics suggest.

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Taylor Dent, who returned to Kalamazoo this year for the first time since he was a semifinalist in 1997, is one the cusp of the Top 20, with plenty of room for improvement as his conditioning gets better. Robby Ginepri has had a renaissance that might earn him a spot back on the US Davis Cup team next month for the World Group Playoffs. James Blake is resurgent after a tragic and injury-riddled 2004.

Only Mardy Fish has been a 2005 no-show among this group, which ranges in age from 22 to 25, and he has been plagued by a wrist injury that required surgery (albeit noninvasive).

If this entire group were ranked within the Top 20, as many thought they might be and some think they could be still, no one would question the future of US men’s tennis only two years after Roddick won the US Open, which he then followed with runner-up finishes at Wimbledon the last two years.

But American perspective is clouded by a legion of Spaniards, led by 19-year-old Nadal; an army of Argentines, who, despite the seemingly annual anti-doping offender, always seem to have someone threatening toward the final weekend of a major; a smattering of small countries, such as Belgium, Chile, and Croatia, which manage to overachieve in the glare of the world spotlight, while US players offer averages performances; and the arrogant viewpoint that, “We’re Americans, darn it! We’re supposed to be better than everybody else.”

Fortunately, there seems to be a bevy of US junior boys with the potential to restore US men’s tennis to the fore of an internationally diverse pack. Four times in the past five years, at least 10 Americans have been in the Top 100 of the ITF junior world rankings, with a high of 14 in 2003. Five US boys are in the Top 25 (as of Aug. 8), led by world No. 1 Donald Young.

A 16-year-old Chicago native now living in Fairburn, Ga., Young is the most prominent US men’s prospect, by far. He won the Australian Open boys’ singles title in January to claim the world No. 1 junior ranking and just won the US national junior title in Kalamazoo, a title that comes with a wildcard into the 2005 US Open.

Since turning pro at 14, almost everyone involved with US tennis has been raving about Young, a true talent from the perfect demographic to give the sport a measurable boost when he “makes it.” Known these days as simply “D.Y.”, he has been featured in national publications – not just tennis and sports publications, but news magazines such as Newsweek – and received a half-dozen wildcards into ATP tournaments this year largely because of his celebrity. Those factors made him a reasonable bet to receive a wildcard for the US Open even if he didn’t win Kalamazoo, which some saw as a risky tournament to enter because he had little to gain (figuring he was assured a wildcard) and quite a bit to lose if he could not handle the pressure of expectations. To his credit, Young never assumed he would get a US Open wildcard, though he clearly wanted one. “I want to make sure I get in,” he rationalized as the USTA Boys’ 18 National Championships began.

Many would say that Young, despite Sell’s nod toward Roddick, is the United States’ Nadal. He is certainly being positioned that way, which doesn’t always sit well with his peers.

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