It was the tweet heard round the tennis world -- at least the part that lies within the United States. After losing a match for a wild card into the French Open to countryman Tim Smyczek on Friday, Donald Young Jr. posted what has been called an "expletive-filled" message (this assumes that a 140-character message can be "filled" with anything) denouncing the USTA for, presumably, having refused to give him that wild card outright.

The wild card belongs to the USTA to dispose of as it sees fit, thanks to a mutually beneficial formal exchange program with its counterpart, the French Tennis Federation.

The first half of Young's tweet was just plain nasty. The second bitterly warned, "[The USTA has] screwed me for the last time!"

Let's call it the next logical phenomenon: "anti-social media."

This tempest in a tweetpot began to brew after Young, having won the Tallahassee (Fla.) Challenger a week ago, asked through his handlers to be given the French Open wild card. After all, a few weeks ago, he beat Andy Murray in the second round at Indian Wells. Those folks -- and their number is considerable -- who have been waiting and hoping for a Donald Young breakthrough couldn't help but wonder, "Is this it? Can this finally be it?"

Unfortunately, Young was unable to win a match in his next event, Miami, and he failed to qualify for Houston. That left him ranked just outside the No. 104 cutoff for direct entry into the French Open when the deadline arrived, even though Young would rise to No. 98 after winning Tallahassee.

That was bad luck, plain and simple. It probably didn't seem fair. So Young asked for the wild card, which would have given Young additional confidence and freed him from having to survive the always-tough qualifying event. It also would have added to whatever sense of momentum Young finally built after spending so much time spinning his wheels. He was a prodigy who often seemed on the cusp of panning out but never quite did.

Under other circumstances, the USTA might have given him that free ticket into the French. After all, the organization has expended an astonishing amount of money and manpower trying to develop and/or improve Young's game, despite frequently locking horns with Young's parent-coaches, former teaching pros Donald and Ilona Young. In the past few years, the relationship has become particularly -- and sometimes publicly -- contentious.

But the idea that the USTA was trying to "screw" Young for whatever reason simply doesn't hold water. It doesn't even make sense. As a matter of policy, the USTA holds a "playoff" style tournament to determine the recipients (one man and one woman) of those precious Grand Slam wild cards; it's become something of a tradition. The invitational playoffs for the French Open wild card were already scheduled and the five other male participants (Young was the sixth) were already at the tournament site when Young's camp made its request.

Young must have been distracted by how this all played out as he took part in the invitational playoffs; perhaps that helps account for why he lost in the final or wild-card round match to Smyczek. Whatever the reasons, the 23-year-old unexpected winner (he's ranked No. 176) can now rest assured that he'll be playing in the main draw at Roland Garros, while Young, whose ranking is higher than that of some players in the main draw, will have to battle and grub through qualifying with no guarantees.

To his credit, Young issued an apology for his rash tweet shortly after posting it, and later closed his Twitter account entirely. But the damage was done. The shelf-life of 140 characters spit out in anger can be surprisingly long.