Taylor Townsend, 13 years after being denied a US Open wild card, is in her element in New York

NEW YORK—“I wasn’t searching for anything, I wasn’t looking, trying to find answers,” Taylor Townsend said after beating Mirra Andreeva on Friday night.

“I had all the answers in here.”

By now, there isn’t a whole lot that the 29-year-old Chicago native hasn’t seen or heard or felt or experienced on a tennis court. This is someone who won the junior Australian Open at 15 in 2012, and became the first American to finish a season No. 1 in the world girls’ rankings in 30 years. Yet that same year, the USTA told Townsend to sit out both the US Open girls’ and women’s events because of her weight.

That set the tone for a career that has veered from triumph to setback, surge to slump, health to injury, joy to frustration for 13 years now. Townsend has climbed into the Top 100, and sunk out of the Top 300, multiple times. She has also made herself into a top-tier, major-title-winning doubles player, who has successfully partnered with a dozen or more different partners.

In 2019, Townsend had a signature win over Simona Halep that put her into the fourth round at the US Open for the first time. At the time, it felt like a breakthrough, but it turned out to be a one-off. Now, six years later, after having a son, missing a season, and starting over in her late 20s, she’s back in the round of 16 at a Slam again.

“I’m a totally different person than I was in 2019, and I think that that showed,” Townsend said of her 7-5, 6-2 win over the fifth-seeded Andreeva.

In the past, when Andreeva threatened to stage a second-set comeback, Townsend might have been rattled, and her often high degree of difficulty shots may have begun to spray. This time she kept doing what she had been doing, and picking her spots to attack. With Andreeva serving at 2-4, the Russian gave Townsend a look at backhand pass on break point. It was a moment, with the win on her racquet, when a nervous player might tighten up. But Townsend rolled the ball into the open court, and let loose with a cry of delight.

“I was so confident and so sure of myself and what I was doing and how I was executing, that it didn’t matter if I hit the back fence, hit the bottom of the net, it didn’t matter. I just kept going.”

That’s music to the ears of so many of us who love Townsend’s game. Since her junior days, she has played some of the most exciting and, when she’s in form, watchable tennis on either tour. The smooth lefty serve, the natural transition game, the good hands around the net, the variety of slices and speeds she creates: She has all of that. But she has always had trouble putting those things together with the type of iron-clad consistency needed to be a top player. And when she did go off, one wayward swing led to another, as her confidence dropped.

That’s what's really cool about tennis in these moments—you’re able to reflect and look even at the mannerisms and how I carried myself then and now, you'll be able to see it’s a different woman. Taylor Townsend

On Friday, though, Townsend, like her fellow Americans Coco Gauff and Tommy Paul the night before, had plenty of help. The 20,000 or so people in Arthur Ashe Stadium rallied around her, after she was attacked two days early by Jelena Ostapenko after their second-round match. According to Townsend, Ostapenko said she didn’t have any class or education—all because, apparently, Townsend warmed up her volleys first (which she has always done) and didn’t apologize for a net cord. Townsend wasted no time talking right back, and rallying the packed house on Court 11.

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Townsend said she didn’t know if Ostapenko’s comments had “racial overtones.”—“that’s something she can speak on.”

“Saying I have no education and no class, I don’t really take that personally, because I know that it’s so far from the truth,” she said. “I'm very proud as a Black woman being out here representing myself and representing us and our culture.”

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“If my son were to see this interaction, how would he view it? I think he would be proud of the way that I handled the situation.” (On Saturday, Ostpanenko issued an apology for her comments.)

Townsend also said that as someone who has played a one-on-one sport, taken her share of knocks, and been in her share of on-court clashes, she knew she had to stand up for herself. You don’t get far in tennis by not fighting back, whatever the situation.

“I mean, it’s sports, I feel like people have gotten a little bit soft,” Townsend. “I’m not going to lie. It’s sports. People talk trash. You know, people say things. Whatever, people get mad.”

“I think that that’s tennis, right? You know no matter what’s going on, it’s me versus you, but at the end of the day we have to respect each other and respect what happens out on the court.”

Townsend seems to have been strengthened by the encounter, and the reaction of the fans in New York. Andreeva is a Top 10 player, and almost certainly a multiple Slam winner of the future. But Townsend was better in all areas and never let Andreeva get into her game. Next for her will be a lower-ranked but possibly trickier opponent in Barbora Krejcikova, another player with a wide palette of shots. Krejcikova, a multiple-time Slam winner, l won their only previous match, in 2017.

As Townsend would be the first to tell you, that was then, this is now. Tennis, as an individual sport, is good for self-improvement, self-reflection, self-realization. That’s especially true for someone who has gone through so much in her career as Townsend, and it’s one reason she loves the game.

“That’s what's really cool about tennis in these moments,” she said, “you’re able to reflect and look even at the mannerisms and how I carried myself then and now, you'll be able to see it’s a different woman.”

Thirteen years after being denied a wild card at the Open, Townsend is in her element in New York.

“When I walked out, at first I had music in, and I took my headphones out and I turned my phone off because I wanted to hear everything.,” Townsend said of her entrance into Ashe Stadium on Friday.

“I wanted to hear the people. I wanted to hear the noise. I wanted to hear them call my name and for me to be able to walk out through that tunnel and to see everything. I wanted to be 100 percent present in that moment.”

“I loved it.”