calling<\/a> Ostapenko\u2019s alleged comment \u201cone of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority-white sport\u201d. After Friday\u2019s triumph, Townsend said handling the fallout was easier than some might think. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been hard at all,\u201d she said. \u201cI said to my team, I\u2019m made for this type of stuff. It wasn\u2019t hard, because I stood in my truth. I didn\u2019t have to defend anything that I said. What I said, I said, and I meant.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen it\u2019s time to do the job, it\u2019s time to do the job. And that\u2019s what I think is a testament to being professional, being able to block out what\u2019s on the outside and when you step in the lines you handle business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor Townsend returns a shot to Mirra Andreeva during their third-round match on Friday night at the US Open. Photograph: Robert Prange\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Ostapenko controversy also tapped into a deeper history. In 2012 the USTA asked Townsend, then 16 and the world\u2019s top junior, to sit out the US Open girls\u2019 event and denied her wild cards into the main draw or qualifying because of concerns over her fitness. The move, condemned by Serena Williams, Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport, forced her mother to pay her way and ultimately led Townsend to leave the federation\u2019s program to work with Zina Garrison.<\/p>\n
That the same player once deemed \u201cnot ready\u201d for Ashe could return years later to topple one of the sport\u2019s prodigies on the biggest stage spoke to the depth of her resilience. Already a Wimbledon and Australian Open doubles champion alongside Katerina Siniakova, Townsend proved on Friday she still has the power to make her mark in singles.<\/p>\n
Townsend said the night felt worlds away from her breakthrough win over Halep six years earlier on the same stage. \u201cIn 2019 I felt like I was climbing and trying to get over the hump … it helped validate me as a player,\u201d she said. \u201cThis time it just feels completely different. I wasn\u2019t searching for anything, I wasn\u2019t looking, trying to find answers. I had all the answers in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Andreeva, an 18-year-old who for years has been earmarked as a future slam winner, the defeat brought an end to a season of consistency at the biggest tournaments, where she had reached the second week at each of the first three majors of the year, including the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. The Russian, who claimed WTA 1000 titles at Dubai and Indian Wells earlier in 2025 and reached a career-high ranking of No 5, was simply outplayed in the end as Townsend fed off the Ashe crowd and her confidence mounted.<\/p>\n
Townsend will next face the unseeded Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who upset 10th seed Emma Navarro in three sets earlier Friday, for a place in the last eight. For a longtime fan favorite whose Instagram following has roughly doubled over the past week, it will offer her widest audience yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is some people\u2019s first time finding out who Taylor Townsend is,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople being able to see me now, but then being able to go back and follow my journey and figure out how I got here, I think that\u2019s super cool. I\u2019m just truly showing up as myself, and I think people see that and I think it\u2019s cool they like what I see. I think I\u2019m pretty cool. I think I\u2019m funny. I think that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not long after Townsend completed her match, fourth seed Taylor Fritz ground out a 7-6 (3), 6-7 (11), 6-4, 6-4 victory over Swiss qualifier Jerome Kym next door on Armstrong, salvaging what had been a brutal day for the American men<\/a>.<\/p>\nEarlier, sixth seed Ben Shelton and 17th seed Frances Tiafoe were both eliminated within an hour of each other, leaving Fritz and Tommy Paul as the only US men left standing in singles. Paul, the No 14 seed, will face Kazakhstan\u2019s 23rd seed Alexander Bublik on Saturday on Ashe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Townsend capped a whirlwind 48 hours at the US Open with one of the finest performances of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-107993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}