Jared Donaldson interview: The American Next Gen star who is not your typical millennial

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mail
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Jared Donaldson is the No.5 seed in Milan this week.

    When the word Dubai is mentioned in front of Jared Donaldson, the young American tennis player ranked No.55 in the world gets immediately animated.

    “I love Dubai,” he told Sport360 in Milan, where he is the fifth seed in an eight-player field at the Next Gen ATP Finals this week.

    He has every reason to. The first and last time Donaldson was in the Emirates was because he received an invitation from Roger Federer to train with him for three weeks ahead of the 2014 season.

    Donaldson had just turned 17 at the time and was ranked No730 in the world. He was not necessarily a standout junior (his highest ITF junior ranking was 115) but he had reached the final of the 2013 USTA Boys 18s National Championship a few months earlier, and was coached by former world No21 Taylor Dent.

    “At the beginning I was very nervous, because I’ve watched Federer growing up, my entire tennis career basically. And he was always on TV because he was always winning right? And he was my favourite player, I always rooted for him. So I was really nervous because I wanted to give him a good practice and stuff,” recalls Donaldson of that preseason back in December 2013.

    “But I remember the first day he came, and he was super relaxed and super jovial, it was actually something that I never really forget.

    “The way Federer was relaxed, I wasn’t as nervous at practice with him. So I’ve always remembered that, that he was really friendly, super warm, it really allowed me to get into a comfortable rhythm in practice.

    “I felt I practiced better because he was so nice. And I don’t think he was fake, that’s just who he is, he’s a really great person and obviously that’s why he’s an amazing champion and a legend.”

    Like his fellow ‘Big Four’ members, Federer makes it a habit to select a young up-and-coming player each season to have a solid training block with, and his list of previous practice partners includes the likes of Nick Kyrgios, who is currently considered one of the top talents in the world of tennis.

    But while Kyrgios was a much talked-about teen who beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon shortly after his stint with Federer in Zurich, Donaldson’s steady but low-key progress meant that he never really was at the forefront of the up-and-coming generation of tennis stars – not until he had his breakthrough at the US Open last year, where he upset the then world No.14 David Goffin en route to the third round, as a qualifier.

    That run saw him break into the top-100 for the first time and slowly the tennis world started to take notice of him. Still, he wasn’t making the waves made by other Next Gen players like Alexander Zverev or Borna Coric, who were taking down huge scalps, nor was he being singled out amongst his fellow Americans like Taylor Fritz or Frances Tiafoe.

    Yet here we are at the end of the 2017 season and Donaldson is the youngest American in the top-70, is ranked higher than both Fritz and Tiafoe, and is the sixth-best 21-and-under player in the world.

    Slow and steady has certainly done well for him.

    He cracked the top-50 last month and can now expect to play a full ATP schedule next season.

    Does he feel like he belongs when he shows up to the big tournaments and faces top players?

    “For me, in my entire career, first you play them and then you lose, then you play at a higher level and you take a set off of them maybe but you still maybe lose. Then after that you maybe win a close one, then you start winning easier and easier as you progress through the certain levels,” he explains.

    “Definitely I think there was a big transition for me, starting first from the Futures, and then the Challengers and then the ATP.

    “I hovered between 100 and 150 for two years and then obviously I had a breakthrough at the US Open.

    “So I think it was a lot of me learning about my game and what I did really well on the court and what I did not so well on the court and needed to improve on.

    “But I think one of the great things that I’ve been able to do, is I was always – and I credit the people around me for keeping my mindset on the positive, which was always make sure you’re improving regardless of what the result is on the court and I think that’s what I credit my relative success to – which is always focusing on the goal of improvement rather than getting caught up so much in the result. Which I think the lines sometimes get blurred.”

    • ALSO READ: Donaldson’s coach Gambill discusses how he and Mardy Fish are helping the young American

    It’s impressive to hear a 21-year-old lay out his thoughts so clearly and explain such a mature and level-headed approach to a viciously competitive sport. His thought process is very Johanna Konta-esque in its simplicity and effectiveness.

    But that mindset should not be mistaken for lack of passion from Donaldson.

    “I got into tennis not because I wanted to make a lot of money or because I wanted to be famous – I wanted to achieve something great, when I was a kid I always wanted to be a professional athlete,” he says.

    “I loved basketball, that was the first sport I really loved, I played every sport, my parents got me involved in everything.

    “But I think sometimes you don’t choose your path, your path kind of chooses you and I would say that’s the same for me because I loved sports, I gravitated towards sports.

    “I would go and shoot hoops, we had a basketball hoop at our house and I would go and shoot hoops and my sister would draw chalk down the sidewalk, so that would be our thing, we spent time together that way.”

    He played baseball but didn’t enjoy the practices too much because “there was a lot of waiting around” and he eventually shifted his focus to tennis.

    “Tennis I thought was great because it was a one-on-one sport and I really liked the sense of the individuality, in not being so reliant on a team, I wanted to be the person where if I lost it was my fault and it if I won it was because of what I did on the court,” he added.

    Unlike most American players who grow up playing through the USTA system, Donaldson went to Argentina when he was 14 to train there for two years.

    If you’re wondering why his game is not about huge serves and bullet forehands like many of his fellow Americans, it’s because Donaldson, his father, along with his former coach Mario Llano realised that more variety in his shots would benefit him more in today’s game.

    “I’m from the North-East, so originally I’m from Rhode Island so I was playing a lot indoor. So two glaring weaknesses were my movement, and the shape of my shot,” he explained.

    “I played flatter because indoor it’s more advantageous to play flatter. So with those two things in mind we realised the best medicine for that to improve was to play on clay because those are the type of things that don’t work on clay. And what I need to incorporate in my game, better movement and more spin on my shots, gets exaggerated on clay because that’s what’s really beneficial on clay.”

    So off he went to Argentina to train with Pablo Bianchi. Donaldson credits his time in South America for where he is today, and while he says it was an amazing experience, he wishes he would’ve soaked up the culture a bit more.

    “I think in a way it prepared me for life on tour because I was away from friends and family and traveling, sent to travel,” he says. “But I guess culturally I could have taken advantage of it a little bit more. I’m not saying I didn’t do anything. I wish I learned the language, where I could speak Spanish fluently because I think that really could have helped me in life.

    “But I didn’t really realise it at the time, I was young, I was a little obviously immature, I was only 14. But that’s one thing I regret, that I didn’t – I was thinking ‘I’m here for tennis and I need to work as hard as I can on tennis to be great’ and I didn’t think about other things.

    “Which maybe, you know we sit here today and say ‘oh I could have done this and that’ and maybe I didn’t take advantage of certain things but for my tennis it was a great experience. So maybe if I wasn’t focused enough on tennis I might not be in my position now.”

    Donaldson is one of the seven highest-ranked 21-and-under players competing in Milan this week, with the eighth player in the field being Gianluigi Quinzi, and Italian wildcard who won a tournament to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals.

    The event is testing out many new rules the ATP is exploring, in efforts to make the sport more appealing to millennials.

    Asked to weigh in on whether these new rules would attract the young people of his generation to tennis, Donaldson quickly points out that he is not your typical millennial.

    “I still have cable TV. I miss the old Sports Center when you turn it on and you just saw the highlights. I loved that,” he says enthusiastically.

    “Maybe I’m not the right person to ask. But for me I definitely think innovation is a great thing, I think maybe for certain sports it’s a little scary. And certainly as a player I can definitely relate to that feeling as well. However I think this is a great opportunity and I really credit the ATP and Chris (Kermode, ATP president) and the ATP in general because you’re broadcasting different results and different ideas and different ways to go about the same game.

    “Because if you’re going to watch the tennis this tournament because there’s great players here, it’s still the same game, it’s just the rules and variations are slightly different.

    “So it will affect the play slightly but I think it’s a good moment to kind of look to see how it will play out. And maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but I think it’s always a good idea to keep thinking and reinventing.

    “Because obviously nothing’s perfect but you want to keep trying to get to a level where it’s really satisfying. From a millennial, for me I still watch all the sporting events, I’m not a cord cutter, I have cable TV, I’m not your typical millennial. I still take information the old way so to speak.

    “I guess it’s kind of this enigma that still hasn’t been solved yet. It will. But yeah it’s a tough debate but I think events like this really help move forward that discovery.”

    Recommended