Berlocq outplays Young: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
With no seeds playing yesterday and rain in the afternoon, Donald Young's 6-0, 6-0 loss in the first round was Story Option One for most of the tennis reporters on hand. Charlie Bricker's above story and his blog entry give him two places to speak his mind. Bonnie DeSimone of espn.com has quotes from his parents and agent in her article. Richard Vach of tennis-x posts a commentary laying all the blame on IMG. Lisa Dillman of the LA Times takes it a little more personally. "Were we all wrong about Donald Young?" she asks in her piece (free registration required). Matt Cronin of tennisreporters.net makes it unanimous with this brief dismissal:
Donald Young: Loses 6-0, 6-0 to Argentina's Carlos Berlocq in Miami, which mean he's now 0-19 in sets on the ATP Tour. To paraphrase Patrick McEnroe: Whoever is deciding to allow this badly struggling junior to continue to accept wild cards when he's obviously in way over his head is an idiot. Young's confidence is so shot now that he may never be a Top-10 player. Until he wins a Future, he should not be allowed to play Challengers, and until he wins a Challenger, no more ATP events.
Consensus like this among tennis pundits (and other players) verges on the unprecedented. But I don't expect any of them to have much influence, as the Youngs prefer to think of themselves as teachers, not students. It's interesting that he's decided to play the Easter Bowl, which will be his first junior tournament since the Yucatan Cup last December. He needs to find that winning feeling again--the practice he's had in losing lately is too much of a bad thing.
In all this hubbub over the Young loss, a big win for another much-criticized IMG wild card recipient, sixteen-year-old Anna Tatishvili has been overshadowed. The Evert-protege won a epic struggle with the WTA's 41st ranked player and Newcomer of the Year for 2005 Sania Mirza of India 7-6 (6), 1-6, 7-6 (8).