The great young hype is finally living up to the billing.
Donald Young, the former junior world No. 1 tabbed for greatness as a teenager, stormed past No. 14 seed Stanislas Wawrinka in a five-set thriller on Friday to advance to the third round of the U.S. Open. The Chicago native came back to win the final two sets, capping off the 7-6, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 victory with a dominant fifth-set tiebreak in which he lost a single point.
John McEnroe famously (and perhaps apocryphally) told his agents at IMG to sign Young after a chance encounter when Young was 10 years old. He lived up to the expectations as a junior but couldn't continue his progession as a pro. He battled with the USTA, took hits in the media and was labeled a flop before he turned 20.
Friday may have been his professional coming out party. He played a patient game in defeating Wawrinka and looked like the veteran, not the brash youngster whose career had been serving as a cautionary tale of what happens when a player goes against the USTA. The five-set win, in four hours, 20 minutes, was his first ever.
"I didn't even know I could go that long," Young said after the match. "The training in the offseason, been working hard at home, it's finally starting to pay off and I'm really happy about it."
Young worked with John Isner and Sam Querrey this offseason to develop better work habits, a period which he's repeatedly cited this summer as having turned his game around.
"Everybody's light comes on at their own time and I feel like mine is starting to come on," he said.