Taylor
Townsend spoke about the discrimination she faced from the USTA due to her
weight after winning her first Grand Slam title in doubles at
Wimbledon 2024.
The American teamed up with the experienced
Katerina Siniakova and defeated the
second seeds
Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe in the final.
The
28-year-old American had fallen in her previous two finals: at the 2022 US Open
with Caty McNally and at the 2023 French Open with
Leylah Fernandez. The third
time was the charm for Townsend, who will rise to World No. 7 in the doubles
ranking.
From junior
star to Wimbledon doubles champion
Townsend
was one of the most prominent junior players of recent times. From an early
age, she was compared to the Williams sisters, reached World No. 1 junior, and
won the 2012 Australian Open in singles and doubles, becoming the first
American to win titles in singles and doubles of a junior Grand Slam since
Lindsay Davenport at the 1992 US Open.
Later, she
won the Wimbledon girls' doubles with Eugenie Bouchard and was one of the
favorites to go for the local title at the 2012 US Open. The controversy arose
when the USTA decided it would not pay for Townsend’s travel expenses to
participate in the US Open, implying that the player was overweight and needed
to improve her physical condition.
The
controversial decision was made at that time by Patrick McEnroe, Manager of
Player Development at the USTA. The player, who was World No. 1 junior at the
time, could not access financial aid, and her mother had to cover the expenses:
"My body — it’s just a part of who I am. And if that makes you
uncomfortable, then I don’t know what to say. This might not be the article for
you,"
Taylor Townsend said in a Players Tribune column in 2021.
![Taylor Townsend joined Leylah Fernandez at 2023 French Open and reached the final. They lost against Su-Wei Hsieh and Wang Xinyu.](https://r.testifier.nl/Acbs8526SDKI/resizing_type:fit/watermark:Picture%3A%20Proshots/width:1280/plain/https://s3-newsifier.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tennisuptodate.com/images/2023-06/copyright-proshots-21294141-6486150576554.jpg@webp?)
Taylor Townsend joined Leylah Fernandez at 2023 French Open and reached the final. They lost against Su-Wei Hsieh and Wang Xinyu.
"I’m
not thin, and I’ve never been thin — that’s just the truth about it, straight
up. Like, for real, I used to be out there on the court with my lil rolls
hanging out in my tight tank tops. Why?? Because why not?? I liked the way I
looked. I liked the way I felt, and I wasn’t ashamed," she added.
"This
wasn’t the first time my fitness had come up. It was something I’d been working
on with my coaches….. and I’ll be the first to admit that conditioning wasn’t
an area of strength for me that summer. But I was still getting results where
it mattered most, you know what I mean??" Taylor Townsend said.
"It
was frustrating!! Like, here I was, flying back to Florida to start my fitness
'hiatus' — while all the other juniors I knew (girls I was ranked higher than)
were on their way to New York to start getting ready for the Open," she
added.
Despite not
having USTA funding, Townsend traveled anyway, and her family paid out of
pocket. The player reached the quarterfinals of the junior tournament and lost
to Estonian Anett Kontaveit.
"Why
is my ranking saying I’m the best in the world….. and my doctor is saying I’m
okay to play….. and meanwhile the USTA is saying I need to see a
nutritionist….. and lose some weight???" Taylor Townsend said in the
Players Tribune column. "It made no sense. It was confusing as hell. And
it hurt — it hurt really bad," she added.
"My
mom was the one who shielded me from all that. She was always like, 'You’re a
child — you should stay in a child’s place. Let me deal with the grown-up
stuff.' So for the most part, me and Symone, we just went out and played. But
we still knew what was going on."
"We’d
overhear them talking about it, see the looks on their faces, stuff like that.
And it was tough. Seeing how you’re making things hard on your family? That’s
tough at any age," Taylor Townsend said.
"And
the thing about those parents who would say sh*t about me — it was like they
felt their kids were the ones getting robbed of an opportunity. Like they
weren’t getting the 'country club tennis experience' they had signed up for.
Tennis was supposed to be 'their' sport. And yet here was their kid, getting
beat by a big Black girl," Townsend said.