Fosbinder filed a lawsuit in Orlando last month<\/a> against her former coach, Taylor Wingate, and the USTA, which operates a training center in Orlando\u2019s Lake Nona.<\/p>\n In 2025, Wingate was permanently banned from USTA-sanctioned events.<\/p>\n \u201cThe safety of athletes is the USTA\u2019s highest priority, and we maintain a zero-tolerance policy for abuse of any kind. We recognize Gaila Fosbinder\u2019s strength in coming forward,\u201d USTA said in a statement this week. \u201cNo athlete should ever have to go through what she has described.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida Politics reached out to Wingate but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n For Fosbinder, who has severe disabilities, tennis gave her strength and self-confidence. Fosbinder was born in Ukraine with a rare condition affecting her joints and muscles that contorts her limbs and makes it difficult to build body mass.<\/p>\n She was adopted from an orphanage at age 4 and raised in the United States by her adoptive mom, a North Carolina employment lawyer who loved tennis.<\/p>\n That led to Fosbinder picking up the racket at age 8. By 16, she started playing exclusively in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n Top athletes in the adaptive sport compete in the Paralympics and tournaments around the world. In 2021, the International Tennis Federation named Fosbinder the female Wheelchair Tennis Junior of the Year.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the height of her junior career, Plaintiff achieved a world junior ranking of No. 10 in wheelchair tennis,\u201d her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n Her talent brought extraordinary opportunities to train, meet tennis legends like Venus Williams and Billie Jean King, attend the U.S. Open, and became an ambassador for the sport.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope to bring more awareness to wheelchair and standing adaptive tennis. I want to represent the youth with disabilities in tennis and make them proud,\u201d Fosbinder wrote in 2019 for a USTA story<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fosbinder worked with her coach, Wingate, who also was a successful wheelchair tennis player himself.<\/p>\n A 2022 Charlotte Observer<\/a> story described their practices together as \u201cfull of wisecracks and gentle trash talk.\u201d<\/p>\n But Fosbinder\u2019s lawsuit said that behind the scenes, her 32-year-old coach began grooming her when she was 16. <\/p>\n \u201cSoon after beginning the coach-athlete relationship, Wingate began blurring clear professional boundaries,\u201d her lawsuit reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wingate told the teen she was \u201cmature for her age\u201d and brought up sex in flirty text messages full of emojis, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n For the first time in her life, a male was showing her attention, which made Fosbinder susceptible to be victimized, her attorney, Amy Judkins, told Florida Politics in an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s holding him in this almost hero-like status and then he starts showing an interest in her and was really able to pray on her vulnerabilities that way,\u201d Judkins said. \u201cHer mom saw Taylor Wingate as a trusted coach who was able to guide Gaila and really had no idea that it had gotten inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Judkins declined to immediately share any of Wingate and Fosbinder\u2019s text messages with Florida Politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s years of messages back and forth. There\u2019s just a lot,\u201d Judkins said.<\/p>\n The lawsuit described a power imbalance between the teenager and her older coach, who had been affiliated with the USTA since 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter months of increasingly familiar, complimentary, and inappropriate communications initiated by Wingate, and other grooming behaviors, (Fosbinder) \u2014 then a minor \u2014 felt significant pressure to maintain closeness with Wingate and to please him both on and off the court. This pressure arose, at least in part, from Wingate\u2019s position of authority over (her) training, competitive opportunities, and athletic advancement, as well as his age, influence, and status within the tennis community,\u201d the lawsuit said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wingate also acted inappropriately with Fosbinder in public, so the USTA should have seen what was happening, the lawsuit alleged.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2019, while attending a tennis tournament sanctioned and governed by the USTA in South Carolina, and while (Fosbinder) was still sixteen years old, Wingate directed (her) to sit on his lap and placed his hands on her thighs in a flirtatious and sexualized manner,\u201d her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese actions constituted inappropriate physical contact between a coach and a minor athlete and were open, obvious, and observable by other USTA members, participants, and employees present at the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n Fosbinder began traveling alone with her coach to tournaments and outings, her lawsuit said, alleging that Wingate began to give her alcohol, marijuana and gifts.<\/p>\n In 2022, shortly after Fosbinder turned 18, her coach gave her alcohol, got her drunk, and they had sex, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n From that point on for nearly two years, a sexual relationship between the coach and his player continued, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter she turned 18, it was really kind of open and obvious. They were at USTA dinners together and sharing drinks and being flirtatious, and he invites her to bars before she\u2019s even 21 with other USTA players and employees,\u201d Judkins said.<\/p>\n After a tennis lesson in June 2024, Fosbinder broke up Wingate romantically and fired him as her coach. Fosbinder had an epiphany about how inappropriate and unhealthy the situation was, and finally confided in her mother, Fosbinder\u2019s lawyer said. <\/p>\n After Fosbinder dumped Wingate, the USTA dumped her, according to the suit.<\/p>\n \u201cOn June 24, 2024, the USTA abruptly informed (Fosbinder) that she was being removed from the Player Development Program. The decision was sudden and unexpected and was communicated in the middle of the night through email communication without any face-to-face meeting, telephone call, or other meaningful communication from the USTA regarding the reasons for her removal,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n \u201c(Fosbinder) alleges that the abrupt termination of her position in the Player Development Program was related to the end of her relationship with Defendant Wingate and\/or the circumstances surrounding that relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25-VM-004-FlaPol-Ads_728x90.gif\")
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