Next Gen ATP Finals: Jared Donaldson leaves Milan in disappointment

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mail
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Ciao, Milano: Jared Donaldson lost all 3 of his group matches.

    Jared Donaldson did not get the season finale he had hoped for as he leaves the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan following a third defeat in as many group-stage matches – the latest being a 3-4(3), 4-2, 4-3(1), 4-0 defeat to Russia’s Daniil Medvedev on Thursday.

    The American No.5 seed did not sugar-coat how he felt about his win-less week in Milan and was visibly disappointed about how things went.

    “About as bad as it could be, for me, playing-wise,” said the 21-year-old from Rhode Island. “I don’t know, I guess these guys are obviously just better than I am right now.”

    Donaldson, ranked No.55 in the world, fell in straight sets to Karen Khachanov on Wednesday, and to Borna Coric on Tuesday, but the short format of the sets sometimes means matches are a lot closer than they seem.

    With many new rules being experimented this tournament, did Donaldson feel he didn’t adjust to them as well as his opponents did?

    “No, I don’t want to blame it on the format. Same rules, it’s tennis, I just lost,” he admitted.

    “I think I need to work on everything because obviously nothing is that good right now.”

    Donaldson tried to play aggressively this tournament, and made frequent trips to the net, but he concedes that perhaps that is not the right way for him to play.

    “I don’t know, I guess it will depend on how I play going forward. It didn’t work this week so I’m not sure how it’s going to incorporate into my future game plans,” he added.

    The top Next Gen American is coached by ex-world No.14 Jan-Michael Gambill, who is with him in Milan, and former top-10 player Mardy Fish, who Donaldson assured will continue to be part of his team moving forward.

    Gambill says Fish will join them in the offseason for training but that the extent of the ex-world No.7’s involvement next season is still unclear.

    “It’ll be great to have him out on the court at the end of the year now,” Gambill told Sport360.

    “One of things that Mardy does is that he’s casual with the things he says but they’re very pointed. Like he says things that make sense, he’ll drive a point through, he keeps things pretty light in practices, which I like, and it’s a really good combo so when he’s around I’m pretty happy.”

    While Donaldson sounded hard on himself for his results this week, Gambill is proud of their season and believes making it to Milan in itself was a great achievement.

    Other Americans in Donaldson’s age bracket have maybe been talked about more but it is the Rhode Islander who ended up qualifying for the Next Gen Finals.

    “Getting here, the only American to make it, and he deserved it. I think that’s a really cool thing here. None of these people were given this opportunity, it was all earned, even the Italian wildcard was a tough tournament,” said the 40-year-old Gambill.

    “Jared’s been able to put on good results throughout the year, not amazing results – I guess Cincinnati is a pretty dang good result for a young guy, making quarter-finals of a Masters 1000, but besides that, just solid, solid, lot of round of 16s, winning a lot of matches, getting through.

    “I make him play the qualifying rather than take a wildcard. I’d rather him earn that chance to be there, so that in the back of his head he knows he made it.

    “It’s sort of like this event. We had to be all in for this event. It didn’t go the way we wanted but he earned it so you’ve got to be for it.

    “I believe in putting the hard work, off the court and on the court. Especially in the offseason it’s going to be tough. But he does have the grit, he steps out on the court he wants to win, he wants to be a good tennis player, he wants to be a professional.

    “He knows that his best game is probably ahead of him, I think we all know that, as he gets more physical and matures a little bit and gets even faster I think he’s going to be even a better player.”

    Donaldson does not have the power shots that maybe most of his fellow Americans have but Gambill sees lists lots of positives in his pupil.

    “He’s very coachable,” he says. “He’s willing to make changes in his game, at 20-years-old we changed his serve and gave him the ability to have a big serve. I’ve streamlined I think his groundstrokes quite a bit, and his fundamentals.

    “We worked really hard on his footwork and it’s something we’re going do even more in the offseason, I think it can get better. The more you can streamline your fundamentals and have your tools in your bag be the same every single day the more confidence you’ll have when you set foot on the court.

    “You can bluff your way through some matches and bravado and hype can get you through a little bit. But I still would prefer that he continues to stay a little bit under the radar.”

    One of the things Gambill insisted on in 2017 was to get Donaldson to go for ATP events instead of leaning back on the Challenger Tour. The youngster played 43 tour-level matches this year, and just eight on the Challenger Tour.

    “He knows what he wants and he also is quite intelligent and he’s smart enough to know that the hype is sometimes just hype,” explained Gambill.

    “And one of the things that we also made a decision on early, it was one of the things working with me, I was like ‘I firmly believe that once you have the ranking to play the ATP events, you go out and play the ATP events’. You don’t go back and get a Challenger just to get a few points to up your ranking a little bit in hopes to get more main draws in ATP events because what that can do it give you that false floor there.

    “You can go out and beat the Challenger guys and get some points, you see those guys who do that over time and their ranking just goes up and down, up and down, up and down.

    “But if you go out and qualify and you take a loss here and you get that inspired win there, all of a sudden you feel like you belong, you’re one of the guys and that’s your tour, you own it.

    “The Donaldsons were behind me in that decision. We played sometimes where it was kind of scary, going to play qualies in a bunch of events, especially the clay-court season, he managed to get in and he even got one lucky loser that he made good use of in Madrid. Those kind of things can happen but you’ve got to be there to do it, and then you get that confidence.”

    Recommended