Kalamazoo is maybe best known, in tennis circles, for hosting the USTA tournament for juniors.  In particular, the winner of the USTA 18 and unders is often given a wildcard into the US Open.  This year, that winner was Jack Sock.  But back in 2005, it was Donald Young.  He beat Sam Querrey in 3 sets.  Both would turn pro shortly afterwards.  Querrey had his first year on tour in 2006, but broke through in 2008 with a win at the Tennis Channel Open in Vegas.  Since then, Querrey has been roughly in the top twenty, though currently, he is trying to get his ranking up due to an injury that took him off the tour for a few months.

Donald Young had high hopes.  He was the youngest #1 junior.  John McEnroe touted Young and liked him for several reasons.  First, Young, like Mac, was a lefty.  Second, Young, like Mac, was a junior.  That is, Donald Young’s father is also named Donald Young.  And while the Williams sisters have been the most successful African American female players, there’s not been anyone as good as Arthur Ashe since, well, Arthur Ashe.  Given the number of African Americans playing American football and baseball, there was some hope that some athletic African American could make his way to the top.  James Blake did well enough, but his stay in the top ten was short-lived.  He had a risky style of play that made him tough for most to play, but meant he could lose to anyone as well.

Donald Young, in the meanwhile, has been mostly mired in the Challengers.  Unlike the much taller 6’6″ Querrey, 6’1″ Donald Young didn’t have the same booming serve.  He turned pro back in 2004, and many said he was pushed too hard to succeed.  And so he had to deal with losing for many years.  He was given an inordinate amount of wildcards, but was rarely able to do much with it.  In the past year or so, Young switched racquets from Head to Prince and for some reason saw his game improve.

Donald Young had some negative news earlier in the year.  Young had won a Challenger event in Tallahassee.  Due to his ranking, he was still asked to play in the wildcard playoff for the French Open.  This is an 8-man tournament held in the US prior to each of the 3 Slams (all the Slams except Wimbledon).  The winner of the playoff would be the US choice as the wildcard to each of the Slams as part of a deal between the US, French, and Australian Open to award a wildcard to each country.  Young didn’t win the event, and grumbled on Twitter, feeling that his win in Tallahassee should give him an automatic wildcard.

Patrick McEnroe defended this choice claiming Young had been given considerable help by the USTA to the tune of half a million dollars, and should be a little more grateful that the USTA kept supporting him despite a lack of results.  Young somewhat apologized.  The general feeling among the tennis aficionados in the US was that Young was a whiner and that everyone was sick and tired of this.  Fortunately, Young did calm down and keep a pretty low profile, and stayed relatively humble afterwards.

His first big success of the year was his defeat of Andy Murray in Indian Wells.  To be fair, for the second year in a row, Murray was pouting over his loss in the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic.  He would lose the following tournament in Miami to Alex Bogomolov who would find himself having his best year.   Young’s confidence really paid off at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington DC where he actually made it into the main draw without needing to qualify.  Young made it all the way to the semifinals upsetting Melzer and Baghdatis along the way.  He lost to eventual champ, Radek Stepanek, in the semis.

Donald Young also had a successful US Open run making it to the fourth round defeating Stan Wawrinka in 5 sets in the second round and upset Juan Ignacio Chela in the third round.  He met fourth seed, Andy Murray, but due to all the rain delays which affected Young more than Murray, he lost in straight sets.

And that brings us to Bangkok.

Young’s rank is 55 in the world so he can mostly get into the main draws of any tournament without qualifying.  He had a bit of luck when Igor Andreev retired after Young won the first set in their first round match.  In the second round, Young upset defending champ, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (who upset Nadal last year) in 3 sets.  Then, he had an easy win over Go Soeda of Japan.  This lead to a rematch with Gael Monfils.

Young last met Monfils back in 2008 in the opening round of Cincinnati in 2008.  Young won only two games against the talented Frenchman.  While Monfils is much better than he was then (ranked 35 when he beat Young), Young is also better.  Monfils had to skip Davis Cup this year because of injury, so Monfils was not playing his best heading into Bangkok.  This meant Young had a shot at beating the top ten player.  And he, apparently, took advantage of this.

Young needed two tiebreaks to beat Monfils. 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(5).  This marks Young’s first ATP tour level final.

And who does he meet?  Top seed Andy Murray.  Murray beat Gilles Simon again, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.  This is the eighth time (against one loss).

That means Andy Murray will play Donald Young in the final.  Young should make it somewhat interesting, but Murray will try to win the tournament which was his first final back in 2005 where he lost to Roger Federer.

Meanwhile, over in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Janko Tipsarevic beat Kei Nishikori in straight sets and will play Marcos Baghdatis, a wildcard, who easily handled Viktor Troicki.

Next week, two ATP 500 events, Tokyo and Beijing.