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Donald Young during his win over Viktor Troicki. Young, a 26-year-old American, has clashed with the U.S.T.A. during his career.Credit Anthony Gruppuso/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

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Identifying the next great African-American talent is tricky business for the United States Tennis Association.

For the last few years, business has simultaneously been great and awful. Great because Serena and Venus Williams have forcefully carried the flag for American tennis — and for diversity. Awful because, outside the Williams sisters, the U.S.T.A. has not produced an American singles champion — black or white — at a Grand Slam event since 2003. It has not delivered an African-American men’s champion at a major tournament since Arthur Ashe.

The mission of finding the next one will become even more intense as the Williams sisters wind down their illustrious careers.

For the last 15 years, the Williamses have been beacons for young players around the world, and they have provided visions of possibilities for young African-American players. But how much progress has the U.S.T.A. made in identifying and developing African-American tennis stars?

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We have this discussion during every United States Open, when the overwhelming whiteness of the sport clashes with the ideals of Ashe, for whom the main stadium at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is named. Ashe, one of only two black men to win a Grand Slam singles title (along with Yannick Noah), dedicated considerable effort to creating an apparatus for putting African-Americans in the tennis pipeline.

In 1969, he co-founded the National Junior Tennis and Learning program. In the decades since, it has grown to about 500 community-based programs, becoming the primary grass-roots feeder systems to identify strong players, according to Martin Blackman, the U.S.T.A.’s new head of player development.

The U.S.T.A. has established so-called excellence teams to identify 10 to 12 players to put on a high-performance path in order to subsidize their development and “fast-track them into the pathway,” Blackman said.

A decade ago, Donald Young was the U.S.T.A.’s black knight in shining armor. Young was a brash and sometimes immature 15-year-old who thought he had the world on a string. That string wound up being connected to a ball and chain that would weigh down Young with unfulfilled expectations.

When Young turned pro, player development was a department within the U.S.T.A. Now it is a sprawling division that offers things like coaching education and player service.

Young could have used those resources.

“I’ve kind of been beat up,” Young, now 26, said Saturday night after his exhilarating come-from-behind victory over Viktor Troicki.

“I’ve had good times, bad times,” Young said. “Hopefully, it’s not over and there’s more to come.”

Asked about the U.S.T.A.’s ongoing search for the next Donald Young, Young smiled. “I thought they moved on from me,” he said, though he added that there were still children near the Atlanta club where he grew up being coached by his parents who had never held a tennis racket.

Blackman acknowledged that cost remained one of the most significant barriers to entry for minority players — the mother of one young African-American pro estimated her costs for travel, coaching and a trainer at $100,000 last year — but he also said tennis needed to sell itself to children who often chose other sports before they had even swung a racket.

“We have to do a better job of messaging and letting kids know that tennis is an acceptable sport,” he said.

2015 U.S. Open

There have been successes. The four highest-ranked American women — Serena Williams, Madison Keys, Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens — are African-Americans. And while Young was the only African-American men’s player in the top 200 entering the United States Open, two other young black players — Frances Tiafoe and Michael Mmoh — are among the country’s best teenage prospects.

Does tennis want to see more players like them? Donald Young’s father, Donald Sr., suggested that at least inside the U.S.T.A., the answer might be no. Donald Young Sr., a teaching pro whose son has clashed with the U.S.T.A. coaching system, hinted there was a self-imposed quota system that makes some African-Americans inside the U.S.T.A. reluctant to bring large numbers of black players into the association’s various academies.

“There is an issue that comes up with African-Americans who get into top positions,” Young Sr. said. “They sometimes don’t do as much as they should do for fear that if you bring in too many, you will be looked upon as, you’re not doing your job.

“Someone might see 15 African-American players who are really, really good, but you fear that people are going to look at you because you brought those 15 into the academy.”

Blackman, who is African-American, rejected that suggestion.

“We want to see the best American players doing as well as they can,” he said. “The only way we can do that is to deepen and widen the talent pool. And the only way we can do that is to reach out to more nontraditional tennis families, especially in minority communities.”

A convergence of circumstances may open the door of opportunity wider than ever. Katrina Adams, the first African-American president of the U.S.T.A., played on the pro tour and has been engaged in youth development through Harlem Junior Tennis. Blackman, who took charge of the association’s player development program this year, knows firsthand the challenges of being a young black player.

They are positioned to oversee a core group of young African-American players who are making the journey together. Beyond Keys, Stephens, Tiafoe and Mmoh are several more highly regarded women, including Sachia Vickery, Victoria Duval and Taylor Townsend.

The challenge for the U.S.T.A. is how to identify and cultivate even more talent.

“We’re in a great position,” Adams said. “The combination of my becoming president and also having played on the tour, and Martin having played on the tour, gives us a depth of understanding and commitment.”

The U.S.T.A. has the Williams family as a model: two girls who grew up in the inner city with a family that sacrificed to provide support and training. But that is not the only model.

“We have to see where we can find hundreds of girls,” Blackman said. “How can we invest in development in a way that gives them the opportunity that Venus and Serena had?” With its resources and a vast network of coaches, the U.S.T.A. must know where they are.

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