The #1 Jr Tennis Player in the World at 15 Now Plays Pro Pickleball | Interview With Donald Young

Intro like you were a number one junior tennis player in uh is is that the world yeah I was never one in the world 15 the world's a big place it was uh when I was 15 uh yeah it happened really quick meet Donald Young the 14-year-old who has the tennis world in a spit Donald Young is quite possibly the best player in the world for his age and has won countless titles at junior level he's done it Donald Young With Victory on tour in 2018 he's beaten one of the M great in St vinka and it means an awful lot to him I just want to be good play good Who is Donald Young? tennis all right Donald Young uh so happy to be sitting down with you chatting for the S interview thank you for uh sitting down with me thanks it's glad to be here so I I've been playing pball for a handful of years um I played tennis in high school I didn't follow the tennis scene super religiously followed it more since I started playing pickle ball and I know a lot of people that play Pickleball um don't don't follow tennis super close some do but not everyone and a lot of people that watch the the pro events I don't think they know who you are what you've done and what your history is with with tennis and and kind of what led that to this and so I want to dive a little bit into your history and how you got to this point playing pickleball so um for those listening like let's kind of let's dial it back to I mean you've been playing tennis probably as long as you can remember 100% 100% right since I was three since you were three you turned Pro 15 you started competing in in Futures Challengers yep and um but like th those years like you were a number one junior tennis player in uh is is that the world yeah I was never one in the world when I was 15 the world's a big place it was uh when I was 15 uh yeah it happened really quick like I went from like winning 12s Nationals to 14s and when I was 14 I won the 18s Easter bowl and then I was 15 I was that one Australian Open Juniors it was crazy it all happened like really fast I was improving like drastically every year and uh it just kind of hit and then things just were whirl went after that it was so quick yeah it was amazing so Training from a young age like your parents play tennis like how how did you get into it is yeah my my parents play my parents play they actually met on the tennis court they met playing each other and mixed up with smash so and uh you know as a kid we didn't have a babysitter so I was out there with them and if I was good and quiet I got to play after so I started when I was three and it just kind of how I went and I kept playing I loved it you had to kick me off the court as a kid I played to the lights turned off at the club and it was a lot of fun that's amazing so you you were uh born in Chicago started playing there and then you said you moved to it was at Atlanta I moved to Atlanta and then 200 end of3 so 200 December 2003 yeah moved for my parents got an opportunity to run a tenis facility with 24 courts and uh just way better for my training and practice with outside in Atlanta you can play 10 11 months out of the Year outside where Chicago is only three and most tournaments are out outdoor tournaments yeah you're at this point in life you're training you're traveling you're competing tell us like like I don't I I don't even know and a lot of listeners here probably don't know like what what a day in the life what a year like you're traveling around the world you're you're training you're competing like kind of walk us through you know your experience uh you know living that life yeah just weird a big question yeah no it's a lot of um so my first international trip I was probably 13 I went to France to play a tournament called leop which is like the best players under 14 in the world come and play and that was my first trip and it kind of was weird because I never thought about that my goal was and my parents goal is to get a college scholarship so that was what we wanted to do so um by the time I was 13 we kind of had that in the back I got an offer from Illinois I got a letter they were ready they wanted me to go play you never did it it right exactly didn't go so we were like okay so what's the next step and it just kept improving so like to continue my training and my development I had to sign with the agency and and go pro which at that time G and pro was signing with the company so I signed with IMG uh John Mao's agent uh that story is weird because I was ball boing with my best friend at a Senior tournament and Mao was warming up but he had no one to warm up with I was too nervous my friend is more outgoing than me he asked John could we warm up with him he said yes so we hit with him he goes back and tells his agent he had never seen a person like that age with hands similar to his so that's so his agent came over to my mom and I later and then they have it all all start you know that relationship that relationship really built just you know naturally and organically from the time I was 9 to when I was 14 and signed with them so that's just kind of how that went and and from there it kind of happened so quick like they supported me helped me with wild cars my development you know they had a affiliation of IMG ballary Academy at the time so I went down there to train some so it was just a lot and yeah to get I didn't know you did the ballary academy so I I read um Andre agy's biography he trained there a lot of people and um you know they were nice so I would go like for tournaments in Florida before tournaments I would go for like 3 weeks and train it wasn't my base but I was able to use that and play with all the top guys was a lot of fun at what point did you kind of break through like the Futures that stuff and Playing Slams & breaking the top 100 started I know you're getting points and then start doing like slams yeah so it took me a while like uh I got my first wild car when I was 15 tournament were asking me to play cuz I was W in the world of Juniors at the time and I wasn't winning I went 0 and 14 in tour level matches and when I was turn 18 I won my first tour match and then it kind of jumped from there and then later that year I was top 100 and I think I won my first future Challenger match kind of earlier the year before I won one a year before so when I was like 17 I won my first Futures match so that all kind of happened kind of slow late but when it happened it it exploded that quick start yeah that's a grind man like two years to get that first win for sure it took a long time and then what was your first slam event uh the US Open so we have this tournament called kalamazo is like the national championships in the US and if you win the ATS you get a wild card to the US Open so I won it yeah I won it in 2005 and that's how I got into my first slam yeah okay what what what's your most memorable slam cuz you've made it you made it to the was it fourth round yeah uh it's pretty US Open for sure uh getting to the fourth round beating Stan rinka 76 in the fifth was pretty cool in like 4 hours and 20 minutes it was a I think watch that one I don't think it was a really good match and yeah that has to be the most memorable what what year was that 2011 that was 2011 super cool but you've done US Open you've done the French austral yeah Australia is one of my favorites to play it's so nice out there you made a run in doubles at the French H French yeah I made the finals in 2017 with Santiago Gonzalez that was really good that that was a lot ofun was a good run and all yeah it was like my first time going that deep in like a a slam like to the end of the second week where you're the only person in the locker room it was pretty cool and then like rankings wise what at what point I mean you were like top 50 in both sing yeah was I made top 50 in both singles and doubles yes which is remarkable yeah that was cool that was in the same year so it was cool 2017 it was nice yeah it was really nice but that felt good it did it did uh i' always wanted i' never been even top 10000 until that and I was like wow all them so quick but it was cool it was a goal of mine so uh yeah it was awesome then we fast forward that I I guess we kind of go let's talk about uh getting Getting into pro pickleball into pick roll now so the the PPA MLP were kind of having this little Battle of of contracts and they're signing a lot of players and then the PPA announces that they sign they signed you and I want to hear how that came about like was that a surprise was this part of the plans yeah how did they approach you uh no actually the it was a real surprise for me uh I kind of built the relationship with Conor parau from the bubbly event I was in contact with him and Sam flaxman at the time was working with them he was cooler and that was kind of my the LI liaison person I talk to so I kind of built the relationship and then the events happened in August of last year where at the Kansas City tournament and I get a call from Connor and he's like you hear what's happening he's like he was like cuz before he was like when you're ready just let us know you know you know we'd love to have you over right so when he called he's like it's time and I was like it is all right it is so so I was like sure you know I've been playing a little bit so I more than willingly signed up and it was excited to have a different Venture cuz tennis was slowing down and uh it was nice how many times have you picked up a paddle before you side with the PV out you know to be fair to be honest not that much man I played a bunch leading up to that bubbly event you know like two weeks every day cuz I hadn't played and then after that it was like once a month with some friends like if I got the text he do you want to come out I'm like sure I'll come out but until then it wasn't much but after that it was some heavy training and I didn't want to embarrass myself so you know I got a lot better than I was previously Pickleball training so yeah let's talk about your progression the transition so okay you signed PPA the next year you agreed to like this is your job now you're you're playing pickle ball um yeah like who are you training with yeah uh the training has been tough cuz I'm in Atlanta so uh Marshall Brown and Rafa hwood are about an hour away so I go up there practice with them some and they come down to Atlanta to play um then I have a guy Alvaro terrone who he played he's a good player he um played a bit now he works a full-time job at Delta but he beat Tyson and singles and he played with me I was happy enough be played me my first turnament we got our win so that was nice I practice with him almost all the time and then there are quite a few 5's that are solid for the drilling and playing games and just working on some stuff and um yeah it's coming quick man yeah the uh you're starting to see your results of singles and I would imagine that feels more natural to you that comes quicker so in the singles game what what aspects of tennis that uh are translating over like okay I was good at this there and makes him good at this year yeah uh for tennis thetics they translated where the angles more like seeing the court now you're good it was like seeing the court like better than I think some of the players cuz of the level I play I just see it differently a little bit and not like in a weird just different you just play you just see and I played a lot of Spin and angles and stuff anyway so that was just how I played so that's what I played in pickle and it seems to be work well with the hands and the spin and stuff like that so just the spin the movements being at the net I like to volley and just uh hitting the ball pretty hard I hit it what are any maybe skills or shots that you've had to learn in in the singles game oh man i' learn ton of different shots the dink I didn't want to dink at all it was all speeds up speed ups and uh you know third shot drops wins and hits the drive most of the all the Tactical stuff that I didn't I just wanted to hit so that was the main thing slowing it down and you know the better you get in pickwise feels like the game slows down for you and that's what it seems like it's doing a little more now than it did in the beginning transitioning from tennis to PBS or anything you me I feel like the Pro pickleball vs pro tennis pickleball environment just so different from tennis tennis is a little more developed longer history the tour events probably feel way different like just the access to players is very different yeah like if if I was a tennis reporter I'm not sitting down with Donald Young yeah you got to like schedule a time it's like a total different thing uh yeah it's more open more family like and more uh open I think and welcoming than tennis is in a sense tennis is more closed the only other thing that I liked about tennis is when you at the pro tournaments you kind of can get into your own Rhythm and space cuz you have your own spot you can go away from everyone you can settle down get into your routine your practice courts are set up you kind of can like get into a routine that make sure you feel well good but uh pickle was more you got to find your spot frantic and you feel like a little fluster then they should do the squir the course scheduling thing cuz I feel like even the the pros like you guys are fighting for you fight in 3 minutes get kicked off another two 10 K I feel like they should block off a few so so then it becomes not a totally fair playing Ground either because one guy might have got 30 minutes on the court he picked and the other one was hopping around 10 15 times yeah yeah so I I heard this take last night um that the pick ball Should pickleball pros be less accessible? Pro scene part of the reason people aren't maybe giving it the the respect or like the attention that they think is deserves is because of this because it's so open and there isn't like this division between like the amateurs and the pros and where maybe not division is the right word but where like you guys have your space you're just so accessible do you feel like if pickle ball was set up more that way where it was a little more private for you guys at the event so you can prepare get ready for these things the interviews were a little more scheduled do you think that would change the perspective of how people viewed Prock ball it's it's possible you know when you can't touch or get close to something is more rare like it's like a different feeling to it but then it's also what makes pickleball cool you get on top of Tyson and Ben John and talk to him and they're sitting there going to the same rest as you and having lunch and J J and then the line just talking about hey I just saw your M so so that makes it cool too but on the other end yeah I think it because you can never get up there and touch feder or Rafa like unless it's some special experience you know you can hopefully get an autograph after but so it has this positives and negatives but I like it cuz it's different yeah yeah that's how I feel about it too like I I don't not sure if there's the right answer for that but it's funny you say the restroom one cuz like the last tournament I was at like I I went you know to the to the restroom to the back and tyon line what's up Ty 100% that's exactly how it is like you like that's how it goes and that's how I feel and it's like oh yeah and it's like just either these real human connections and conversations you would never have with some other people it's super cool that way well fun man what what's what's the next step for What’s next for Donald Young you you're you're going to keep competing this year do you plan on staying what do yeah 100% I signed the P for three years uh I'm all in I'm excited to get better I want to start going deep and hopefully win one of these things and like uh get better cuz I don't like to do anything half I wanted to go full in and win definitely and do you feel like you're progressing at the rate you'd like you know what it could always be worse but it always be better and it's progressing which is the key is is getting better but uh no I thought it was going to be a lot faster but uh it's it's it's very humbling and uh I'm loving the process well it's cool man it's fun watching you and obviously like the athleticism the Acumen is there and you know it's just going to it's going to keep happening and it's already starting toci um thanks for sitting down with me spun with you and enjoyed it I love watching the videos keep it up [Music]