Donald Young, the boys' third seed, recovered from a slow start to beat Belarusian Andrei Karatchenia 6-7, (6-8), 6-1, [10-4], in the second round of the boys’ singles.
The 17-year-old American struggled at first against the broad-shouldered 18-year-old from Minsk. But he pulled his game around to force a tiebreak. Karatchenia matched him blow for blow from the baseline and made the crucial break.
Young has been playing at the highest level in the boys’ game for a few years. In 2005 he won the Australian Open boys' title, the beginning of quite an extraordinary year for him, in which he was the youngest boy to win a Grand Slam title, and became the youngest ever junior boy ranked number one in the world.
The left-hander immediately broke the Belarusian in the second set, which he then ran away with. Karatchenia’s resistance faded fast. Young varied his game a little, with a few net approaches. Although he was struggling with his sliced backhand returns, his net-skimming, heavily top-spun forehand was repeatedly a killer.
Having bagged the second set easily, the match tiebreak presented no problems for the third seed.
Match Statistics
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