Are the ATP and sponsors rushing ‘young prospects’ into the limelight too early?

Let’s face it, everyone wants a glimpse into the future of what the top of the game will look like in five years. Who will be the serious regular contenders for winning both majors and masters 1000s? Everyone wants to know. It carries its own intrigue and, more than anything else, it gives everyone something to debate. However, are the ATP all too aware of this craving the fans have though and as a result marketing these players into the spotlight too soon, to such an extent it is having a detrimental effect on the youngster and even stunting their development?

There is a good case for this being true. There is evidence of this having already happened and that evidence comes in American Donald Young. Donald Young was widely touted as a star of the future in the men’s game. He was a junior number one and won himself multiple junior Grand Slam titles. The ATP latched onto him and from the age of 15 until about 22 he had been issued a staggering 27 wild cards into main draw ATP tournaments. It is an astonishing number and despite failing at the first hurdle on numerous occasions, instead of relieving the pressure they reinforced it, by issuing more. Every time he didn’t make it through the opening round, the pressure intensified on Young’s shoulders. As time went on the results were the same but the performances worsened, with him beginning to mentally implode on court. From those 27 opportunities, Young got beyond round one on merely two occasions. For more clarity that’s a win:loss ratio of 2:25 from wild cards.

During these times where wild cards were being thrown at Young, he’d yet to have experienced any period where he was competing in just challengers and getting to know himself. There was no opportunity for him to build rhythm, confidence, momentum and the like. No stability basically. Often he would go into these main draw matches even expected to win and due to his not possessing the invaluable experience from playing challengers where he would on occasion be the ‘favourite’, he was incapable of dealing with the pressure. On-top of this, winning a challenger tournament or reaching the latter stages is something that could have given him the experience of managing his thoughts and emotions more maturely in big pressure situations at a professional senior level.

Of course as time has gone on the wild cards have stopped: there is a lot less media spotlight on Young and as a result after spending a good portion of the 2013 season battling away and learning his trade on the challenger tour, he finally began to make a natural impression on the senior tour. In 2014 without the charity giving of wild cards into main events he was impressive with the highlights of his season being a run to the third round of the Australian Open where he overcome seasoned pro veteran Andreas Seppi and a run to the third round of the French Open where he practically obliterated Feliciano Lopez. Now in 2015 he is finally establishing himself as a fully fledged ATP professional, with an 11:6 win:loss for the season and an appearance in a final of Del Ray Beach 250. In a recent statement made to the media Young categorically stated he had finally been able to learn how to deal with on-court pressure. If that doesn’t show that he was thrown into the deep end too quickly, what does?

So are the ATP and their sponsors wrong in not contemplating the bigger picture when concerning these youngsters that show promise early? Is their desperation for new blood at top of the men’s game detrimental for potential rising stars of the future? The answer is clearly yes. They should be nurturing these young prodigies in order to give them the best chance of maximising their given potential.

There is another example and it is happening right now: Alexander Zverev. He reached the semi finals of the 500 ATP series event in Hamburg on clay last season and ever since has been smothered with wild cards. As a result of being issued so many wild cards he has been unable to compete in challengers or higher tier futures events and now, following his recent defeat in the qualifying stages of the masters 1000 event held at Indian Wells, is on the brink of dropping outside the world’s top 500. The best players are the ones that have a strong understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and are able to ‘maximise’ their game using that understanding. Zverev doesn’t intuitively (or subconsciously) understand fully how he would be best advised to play.

His poor performances of late have not only been down to him choosing only to be aggressive when he is far behind the baseline, but down to how he is tactically constructing the rally. If he had stayed in challenger tournaments and only played the occasional main ATP event this wouldn’t have happened. He would not only have been able to maintain a decent ranking, but also been given the affordment of being able to nip and tuck with his game. Make some shuffles here and there: trial and error. I am not speaking about experimenting with new things, but just little adjustments here and there. You are not afforded that time to do that at ATP tour level. The reasons are the quality is so much higher and the players rarely ever give you anything in terms of free points or dips which can work as breathing space.

Now Alexander Zverev finds himself faced with an uphill battle, most likely needing to qualify for challenger events and that is going to be really demoralising for a kid that has just come from experiencing the atmospheric glamour of the main tour. He was clearly not allowed to play in these ATP 250/500 series tournaments and without that ability to play your own tennis, your game doesn’t get enough of a run out on court. Not to mention when the results aren’t going your way and/or you’re being crushed, your confidence can feign, as with Donald Young. Though this isn’t just about building confidence, these players levels in general are simply not good enough for the tour.

From a long-term perspective what the ATP are doing is counter-productive for their, the fan’s and the game’s interests. Unfortunately despite all of these overwhelming signs and pieces of clear-as-day evidence, they and their sponsors are unwilling to acknowledge what they’re doing. They are more than happy to continue offering the wildcards and placing these ‘gambles’ on youngsters they want to see do back flips before they can even front crawl.