Taylor Townsend was born on April 16th, 1996, in Chicago, IL. Her parents were longtime friends of the Young family, and Taylor used to tag along with Donald whenever he would play tennis with his parents in Chicago; it is thanks to Donald's father that Taylor learned the sport of tennis as a child. Unlike Donald, however, Taylor's natural instincts led her to play an aggressive, serve and volley style of tennis, which she still mostly employs to this day. When the Youngs left Chicago to go to Atlanta, they convinced the Townsend family (including older sister Symone, who also plays tennis) to follow them. Taylor continued developing, and eventually attracted the attention of the coaches at the USTA training facility in Boca Raton, FL, where she began to receive even further coaching and the financial backing of the USTA, something that her mother credits for allowing Taylor to be able to continue her career.
2011 is when Taylor began to make waves in the tennis world at large; at age 15, having already had success in junior tournaments, she attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open. After winning two matches, she next played Laura Robson of Great Britain. She lost the first set, but came back to win the second and held a 5-2 lead in the third set before falling in a tiebreaker; though she lost, her performance earned raves from many onlookers, including Richard Williams, who was in attendance and came away very impressed with Taylor, saying that he thought that she was further ahead at 15 than his daughters were at the same age. Both his comments and the many articles that began to follow in earnest started up the hype machine that Taylor was going to be the next star in American tennis. As I said in Donald Young's entry yesterday, I think the media is so desperate to be able to say "I told you so!" when it comes to predicting stardom for young prospects that these situations end up being very volatile when/if things don't pan out; nevertheless, she persisted. (I'm so clever, I know.)
2012 ended up being a banner year for Taylor on the junior circuit, as she won the Australian Open junior singles title and became the first female American junior to finish the world #1 in the rankings in almost 30 years. Her success in the juniors, however, was greatly overshadowed by the controversy that arose before the U.S. Open that year. Having allotted Taylor the chance to qualify for the U.S. Open the previous year, the USTA denied her request in 2012 and also requested that she sit out the junior tournament; her funding for tournaments was also pulled. Patrick McEnroe, then the president of the USTA, cited health concerns as one of the reasons as to why he did not want her to play. This was widely interpreted as a slam on Taylor's physique, and both McEnroe and the USTA were sharply criticized by many observers of the sport for their callousness. The decision was further rendered ridiculous by the fact that Taylor was already ranked the top overall junior at that point, so clearly her physique didn't stop her from having a successful season. In response, Taylor split from her USTA coaches and began working with Zina Garrison, who empathized with Taylor's situation, having struggled with an eating disorder herself. Relations between Taylor and the USTA have since thawed, from what I've been able to find; McEnroe claimed later that the whole incident was based on "miscommunication" and later agreed to fund her career again. The Townsend family played it cool after all this went down, but no doubt this must've left a bad taste in their mouths. The family eventually found out that her struggles with fatigue had nothing to do with her weight, but were rather caused by an iron deficiency, which has since been treated. So take that, USTA.
2014 saw the first real splashes made by Taylor on the pro tour - she won her first two ITF titles that year, but perhaps most notably, reached the third round at Roland Garros, beating the #20 seed and the highest-ranked French player, Alize Cornet, to reach that point. She also played in the main draws of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that year, as well; at the U.S. Open, she lost to [name redacted], the eventual champion, in the first round. 2015 saw Taylor taking a few steps back; she injured her ankle at Indian Wells that year and missed time due to the injury; having cracked the top 100 for the first time that February, the injury ruined her momentum and shook her confidence. She decided to split with Zina Garrison and reconnected with Donald Young Sr, her childhood coach. The reunion didn't prove to be fruitful initially, as Taylor's ranking dipped near the 400s, and in fact, she attracted a lot of attention in March last year for playing a 69-year-old woman in the first round of a very low-level ITF event, Gail Falkenberg. (You go, Gail!) Slowly, however, she began to pick up steam, winning another ITF title in April, and now her ranking sits inside the world's top 150 again, and seems to be trending upward once more.
I personally haven't seen Taylor play much to date, so it's hard for me to say how much of the hype has been warranted thus far; I will say that it's obvious that, from what little bit I HAVE seen and have heard, she definitely has a ton of potential. And she's only going to be a mere 21 years old in April, so there's plenty of time for her to grow her game. Even if she ends up not being the "future of the game," however, here's hoping that she's still able to enjoy herself and not let the pressure get to her too much. And for the love of god, who cares what her physique is like? The important things are the results, not worrying about a player fitting into your bastardized notions of what they "should" look like. The USTA hopefully had a lot of egg on their face after that - here's hoping that future players never, ever have to deal with anything like what Taylor went through back in 2012.
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