Donald Young Apologizes to USTA, McEnroe for Twitter Tirade
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Donald Young has been in the news this past Easter weekend for all the wrong reasons. On Friday, after losing in the final match of the USTA French Open wildcard playoff to Tim Smyzcek, Young ripped into the USTA via twitter.
“Fuck USTA!! Their full of shit! They have screwed me for the last time! #enoughsaid” Young tweeted.
He then backtracked, a little, in a follow-up tweet. “that tweet was out of character. ive never been like that before. but im tired of it. sry about the language, but not the thought behind it.”
Young proceeded to delete his twitter account but the damage had been done. The 21-year-old who’s had a nice season of results and a Top 100 ranking, felt slighted for not receiving an automatic French Open main draw wildcard (his ranking was not high enough to warrant a direct berth at French Open entry deadline).
But the USTA, which has helped Young through his upbringing with coaching help, wildcards, support and money, was not pleased with Young’s outburst, saw it a different way and yesterday player development head Patrick McEnroe defended their actions.
“I was obviously taken quite aback by the language and also by the intent of what he said in his comments,” McEnroe said. “His subsequent comment came
before he took down his Twitter account that he apologized for his language, but not for the message behind it. When I read that, I thought a lot about the
time and effort that our team at Player Development has put into Donald in trying to help him reach his potential.
“I can just tell you that we have worked hard and long to try to help him. And I think he was making quite a bit of progress based on the amount of time he spent with our team in the last six months at a couple of our centers, including Carson and Boca.”
Despite the scuttle, McEnroe said they are still supporting Young. “I can only tell you that we’re not withdrawing our support,” he said. “We want our players to do well. Quite frankly, I’m offended. 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.”
Young, who is in Florida this week for the Sarasota Challenger where he plays Giovanni Lapentti later today (corrected, thanks Sax), has since apologized for the incident.
Young was the No. 1 ranked junior (winning 3 of the 4 junior Grand Slams) many years ago but just had the big breakthrough on the professional ATP circuit. He currently ranks No. 95.
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