It can be a lonely existence. Jim Courier compares Young’s situation to that of Phil Hughes, the New York Yankees’ young pitcher, who just turned 21. “When you look at Hughes,” Courier says, “you have a whole organization that’s trying to protect him, not bring him up to the majors too fast or have him throw too many pitches. But in tennis, for most young players and their families, they’re winging it, learning as they go.”

Learning as you go is a pretty good description of Young’s game plan in the first round of the Carson Challenger, as he moves Carsten Ball around the court, probing for weaknesses. It has been about a year since Young played in an ATP tournament. Though he has disappeared from the headlines, he has not quit, instead rededicating himself to the minor circuit. Team Young has come to accept what so many others were saying from the wings, a consensus summed up by the American doubles star Mike Bryan. “Most people feel he got too many cards in the show too early,” Bryan wrote in an e-mail message. “Donnie needs to be able to come along at his own pace and play lots of Futures and Challengers. Let him win some of those along the way and get wild cards on the big tour when he’s ready.”

Image A Matter of Follow-Through Donald Young practicing his backhand at Tennis in Motion, a tennis academy and training facility outside Atlanta and run by his father and coach, Donald Sr. Credit... Photographs by Matthias Clamer for The New York Times

The first game of the second set against Ball is a marathon. Seven deuces. Young is serving, but he can’t finish off the game. On the fifth deuce, after a passing shot whizzes by him, Young takes a ball from his pocket and slams it into the fence. There’s another long rally before Young rushes the net again. This time, Ball is stretched wide and can muster only a weak floater, which Young blocks easily into the open court. Young has struggled to hold his serve, but it’s Ball who throws his racket to the ground and seems rattled.

A few more players have gathered around the court, now that the television coverage of the French Open is over for the day. Among them is Harel Levy, once a Top 30 player, now plagued by injuries, whom Young beat in April en route to winning his first professional tournament, a Futures event in Arkansas. Levy is speaking Hebrew with a few other Israeli players — all veterans of the ATP tour, hoping for one last run. There are also a few rising prospects present, though none as heralded as Young. Most of the players in Carson will spend the majority of their professional lives on the minor circuit. “Financially, it’s like any other job,” says Rajeev Ram, a former star at the University of Illinois who is ranked No. 175. “We make enough to cover expenses and put a little on the side.”

For Young, it’s not about the money at the moment. He has earned only $14,077 in prize money so far this year, but he has moved up in the rankings, from No. 484 at the end of 2006 to 335 on the eve of the Carson event. His father speaks of “renewal” when describing the current phase of his career. “It really took a while, a lot of talking, to get me to realize I’m still 16 at the time — I turned 17 later that year — to keep working at it,” Young says. “I wasn’t supposed to beat someone 25, 26, who’s been Top 10 in the world before. Just take it all in perspective and keep working. It took a while. It hurt though.”

It’s Ball’s serve, and he quickly goes up 30-love. But his thoughts still appear to be on the previous game, when he had a chance to take control of the match. Young gets a couple of serves back in play, and suddenly Ball’s ground strokes are less sure. He makes three errors in a row and gives the game away.