Donald Young completed his final professional tennis match at the Arthur Ashe Stadium with so much pride.
On Sept. 5, Young played his final game at the 2024 US Open Championships. He and his partner Taylor Townsend lost the doubles Grand Slam final 7-6 (0), 7-5 to Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani. Following the match, Young received a standing ovation and the United States Tennis Association honored him with a video tribute featuring his career highlights.
“I’ve done my little crying at home thinking about [retirement from tennis],” Young said, according to ESPN. “I’ve gotten emotional. But it was such an exciting moment as well, maybe if we’d have got whooped up first round it would have been a little more emotional, but we made it to the final and we had a chance. It was a few points here or there.”
He added, “In that sense I was pretty happy and proud that we were able to go that far or do that well, and it kind of made me feel good about how I was able to go out.”
Like so many athletes, Young’s journey was filled with ebbs and flows. As a junior in tennis, he won several Grand Slam titles, earning him the No. 1 ranking spot. He was viewed as a phenomenon and poised to become one of the biggest names in the National Tennis League. Unfortunately, though, he didn’t live up to others’ expectations.
He played in two ATP singles finals but didn’t bring a title trophy home. He made it to the US Open’s fourth round for singles twice but had better luck in doubles. In 2017, he competed against Santiago Gonzalez at the 2017 French Open final but lost. From 2022 to 2023 he mainly played at the Challenger level tournaments, aka the second-highest tier of tennis competitions.
In recent years, Young shifted his focus to pickleball, one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S., according to usapickleball.org. He’s also been focused on the PPA Tour, which is the pro tour of pickleball. Tennis fans were shocked but happy to learn that Youn decided to play in the mixed doubles sector of the U.S. Open as a way of officially saying goodbye to tennis.
Young tapped Townsend due to their longtime friendship and team-up at the 2014 Wimbledon Championship, where they made it to the semifinals.
“It’s his last hurrah,” Townsend told WTA Insider ahead of the tournament. “He’s retiring so he asked me to play. I was like, you’re the reason I believed I could play any sort of pro tennis, because he’s the closest I was around to it. It would be an honor for me to play with you and share the court for you on your retirement. I had a lot of fun with Ben [Shelton] but this is a sentimental thing.”
Young may be closing the chapter on tennis, but he already knows what’s next. He plans to transform into a professional pickleball player “for the next two or three years.”
“Everything I do I want to be the best I can possibly be at it,” he said, per ESPN. “To be the best would be awesome. I want to start competing and making it into final weekends on a consistent basis. That’s it.”
