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BUCKY FOX |
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TENNIS? |
 Teen Tennis Phenom DONALD YOUNG |
Watch for Donald Young
to reach tennis stardom
By BUCKY FOX
of TheColumnists.com
Tennis yearns for its own Tiger Woods.
Without such a superstar, tennis is stuck selling such names as Gaston Gaudio.
With a Tiger act, tennis would rock in the future.
Well, look what we have here: Donald Young. The future is Young.
How Young? Try 15. By the time he’s of voting age, he’ll be campaigning for tennis’ top titles.
Donald Young actually just turned 15, so he was a mere 14 when he tried to qualify for the Mercedes-Benz Cup in July. That’s a tournament that tries to cruise on the level of its sponsor. Certainly it steered Andre Agassi to its UCLA venue, and that’s the biggest name in tennis.
For now. Wait till Donald Young swings to full strength. He will grow into the Tiger of tennis.
Let’s tell it like it is: Tennis needs a black American man to win Grand Slam championships. With Agassi aging and the Williams sisters bored, the sport awaits a wake-up call.
Tennis is simply in the same sleepy state golf was in 10 years ago--before Tiger roared. He’s a prince of a golfer, but what makes him King is he’s black in a white sport. Americans love that combination.
Enter Donald Young. This Chicagoan is lean, quick, displays wonderful lefty shots - and is a handsome, black kid. He would’ve packed a night session of the Mercedes-Benz Cup.
As it is, he packed the tiny area for qualifiers leading up to the tourney. I caught his match against a Swiss named Marco Chiudinelli, and this is clear: Donald Young is the real deal.
Young has terrific hand-eye coordination at the baseline and net. He runs everything down. And he has shoes as big as Charlie Chaplin’s, so figure him to reach 6 feet 3.
What’s crucial is this: Young knows how to win. In the third set, he trailed 1-4, 15-40. It looked over. It was, for the Swiss. Young streaked the rest of the way for a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 triumph. This guy is big league.
Young didn’t make the Cup’s main draw. He needed one more victory to qualify, but lost to Andy Ram of Israel in three sets.
That’s OK. Ram is built like one. He’s a real man, a hunk of a doubles pro whose nickname should be L.A.
As he came off the practice court later in the week, I asked him about Young.
“He’s going to
be good,” Ram said, and he looked like he meant it.
Agassi is a generation older than Young and could be in the homestretch of his career, but he’s still a thoroughbred.
Agassi didn’t win the L.A. tournament. He lost to the eventual champion, Tommy Haas, in the quarterfinals. But Andre continues to run down balls and crush them. That perpetual talent and eight Grand Slam titles keep fans flocking to his matches.
How does he do it at 34? Work. The man is a rock. He trains his tail off to stay in his tiptop shape. He didn’t reveal a molecule of fat on him in his post-match press chats. What a change from the early ’90s, when his muscles bulged. I asked him about his new look.
“I still have muscles,”
he said, smiling and pointing to his shoulders. “I’m
leaner, but still holding my strength.”
Then there’s the lighter side of the tennis scale. She’s about the tiniest pro you’ll ever see, and sports a heavyweight name: Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi.
Anna plays more like her maiden name than her size. She entered the recent Los Angeles tournament as the No. 17 player in the world and showed why. She quickly picked on someone much bigger, Daniela Hantuchova, and smashed the once-rising Slovakian.
The next day I watched Anna wilt under a sizzling sun against a hot Svetlana Kuznetsova. The fullback-like Russian proved too strong.
“She didn’t give me many chances,” Smashnova-Pistolesi conceded after getting cooked.
Still, Anna owns nine tournament titles. How does someone just 5 foot 2 and 117 pounds win so often? By swinging one mean backhand. Could be the third best one-hander among women pros after Justine Henin-Hardenne and Emelie Mauresmo.
Smashnova-Pistolesi’s story is as long as her name. She’s a walking United Nations: Born in Belarus, moved to Israel, lives in Italy with her husband, the former pro Claudio Pistolesi.
Anna plays for Israel and plans to compete in the upcoming Olympics. Which is where her story turns complicated.
Anna has a contract with Lotto, the Italian sportswear company. She wears Lotto clothes and shoes when she plays.
Israel has another contract. It wants its tennis players wearing Ellesse. You don’t wear Ellesse, you don’t play.
Then again, if Anna doesn’t wear Lotto, the company will want big bucks back.
Such is the state of sports. Serious money. Serious business decisions.
I say the little Israeli plays in Athens with Lotto garb. Then throws on an Ellesse sweat suit for her press conferences.
That’s the Olympic
spirit.
©2004 by Bucky Fox.
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