Taylor Townsend

This table is current through the 2020 Australian Open.

With a lower ranking, Townsend returned to playing ITF events almost exclusively. Her decision to switch back to her childhood coach, Donald Young Sr. after the 2015 French Open eventually began to pay off as she regained her form in the spring. In April, she repeated her feat from 2014 of winning both the singles and doubles titles at Charlottesville. This again helped her win the French Open Wild Card Challenge. After partnering with Asia Muhammad just once in 2015, the previously successful doubles team recombined to win five ITF doubles titles by the end of April, including back-to-back-to-back clay court titles at Pelham, Dothan, and Charlottesville. Townsend returned to the Top 200 by May and got back to No. 154 after winning her first round match at the French Open. From there, her ranking steadily rose to as high as No. 131 in the world near the end of the year. She also finished the season with eight ITF doubles titles to reach a year-end doubles ranking of No. 73.

Townsend continued to play on the junior tour in 2013 and reached another Grand Slam singles final at Wimbledon, this time losing to Belinda Bencic. She also competed in the USTA Junior National Championship as the No. 4 seed and was knocked out in the semifinals by No. 2 Allie Kiick.

Townsend made her WTA Tour debut in singles at the 2013 Indian Wells Masters, where she defeated Lucie Hradecká for her first tour-level match win. Her next WTA main draw appearance came at the 2013 Citi Open. Although Townsend lost in singles, she also competed in the doubles event with Genie Bouchard, her doubles partner from their Wimbledon girls' doubles title the previous summer. The duo made it all the way to the final, the first career WTA final for either player.

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments and Olympic Games are included in Win–Loss records.

She was named the ITF Junior World Champion in 2012 for finishing the year No. 1 in the girls' junior rankings, making her the first American to do so since 1982. In that year, she won the junior Australian Open titles in both singles and doubles, and three out of the four junior grand slam doubles titles in total.

Townsend started playing tennis at the age of six, and was one of the first junior players to participate in the XS Tennis program run by Kamau Murray. Murray is better known for coaching Sloane Stephens to a grand slam title. When she was eight years old, she moved to Atlanta to continue training with Donald Young's father. Townsend's mother is a close friend of Donald Young Sr., as the two of them grew up together on the South Side of Chicago, where they trained at the same tennis center. At age 14, Townsend moved to Boca Raton, Florida, to join the USTA development program. When the USTA decided not to fund Townsend's expenses to compete at the 2012 US Open, Murray and XS Tennis organized a fundraiser to cover nearly $1000 of the cost of the trip. After that, Townsend split time training with Murray in Chicago and Zina Garrison in the Washington DC area. Since 2015, Donald Young Sr. has again served as her coach. Townsend tries to model her game after her tennis idol, Martina Navratilova.

Townsend won the 2012 Australian Open junior tournament at the age of 15 to become only the second American to ever win that title after Kim Kessaris in 1989. She also won the doubles title at the same event to become first American to win both the singles and doubles titles at a junior Grand Slam event since Lindsay Davenport accomplished the feat at the 1992 US Open. A few months later, Townsend won the Easter Bowl to help complete her rise to No. 1 in the ITF junior rankings before the end of April.

Townsend continued her junior Grand Slam success in doubles that year by winning the Junior Wimbledon title with Eugenie Bouchard and the US Open title with Gabrielle Andrews, with whom she also partnered at the Australian Open. The only Grand Slam that eluded Townsend was the French Open, where she lost in the semifinals while partnering with Bouchard. Additionally, she was able to win the US Open title in spite of being asked to sit out that tournament by the USTA over fitness concerns. This was only the seventh year where a player or team was able to win three out of four Grand Slam doubles titles, with senior Grand Slam winners Victoria Azarenka and Sloane Stephens among the others to complete this task. Townsend finished the season as the No. 1 ranked junior in the world, for which she was named the 2012 ITF Junior World Champion. She became the first American girl to hold this honor since Gretchen Rush in 1982.

Townsend was asked by the USTA to sit out of the 2012 US Open Junior tournament due to her weight and also denied her request for a wild card for the US Open main draw or the qualifying tournament, which she had received the year before. Patrick McEnroe stated, "Our concern is her long-term health, number one, and her long-term development as a player. We have one goal in mind: For her to be playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium in the main draw and competing for major titles when it's time." Townsend was shocked by the USTA's decision given that she was the top-ranked junior girl in the world.

Townsend entered her first professional-level tournament in October 2010 at the age of 14 and was able to win her first career match. She also played in the doubles event at the 2011 US Open when she was 15 years old and reached the third round with her compatriot Jessica Pegula. She also received a wild card into the singles qualifying draw and defeated world No. 122 Arantxa Parra Santonja in the first round. The following year, Townsend requested another wild card into the 2012 US Open and was declined due to the USTA's concerns about Townsend's fitness. The USTA received widespread criticism for this decision.

Taylor Townsend (born April 16, 1996) is an American professional tennis player. She reached a career-best WTA ranking of No. 61 in July 2018.

Following the controversy, Townsend split from her USTA coaches and began training with former world No. 4, Olympic doubles gold medalist, and 1990 Wimbledon finalist Zina Garrison, who continued to coach her until 2015.