Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

The United States Tennis Association (USTA) has been taking some heat recently for their decision to bench sixteen-year-old junior tennis player, Taylor Townsend. Why was she benched, you ask? Was she losing a lot of matches? Was she having a streak of bad luck? Did she miss too many practices? Caught smoking and drinking after hours in Boca Raton? No, no, no, and hell no.

Taylor Townsend was benched because the USTA thought she should focus on her “fitness.” Read: The USTA does not like the 5’6″ 170-pound player’s weight. Oh, and by the way, Taylor Townsend just happens to be the number one junior girl tennis player in the world. Not the country. Not the continent. Not the Western Hemisphere. The world. I have a few choice words for the USTA, most of which I cannot write here. But, suffice it to say, this just really pisses me off. And judging from the reaction of the World Wide Webs, I am not the only one.

Townsend is the junior Australian Open singles champion, the junior Wimbledon doubles champion and the number one junior girl in the world. She is part of a player development program funded by the USTA, which opened its first training academy in Florida in 2008 where Townsend is training as one of 25 select juniors. And it would seem that the program worked pretty much exactly the way it was supposed to in the case of Townsend. That is, until this summer when Townsend lost in the first round of qualifying at a professional event in Vancouver. After that loss, Townsend’s coaches asked her to withdraw from the USTA Girls’ National Championships in San Diego, a win at which would have earned her an automatic wild card into the U.S. Open’s main draw and the opportunity to be seen by agents and potential sponsors. Instead, Townsend’s coaches requested that Townsend return to the USTA’s training academy in Boca Raton and when Townsend requested a wild-card entry slot in the U.S.Open’s main draw or, alternatively, in the qualifying tournament. The USTA denied her requests and told her that they would not fund any more tournament appearances until she got into better shape.So, Townsend’s mother stepped in and paid her daughter’s expenses herself. Townsend lost in the quarterfinals but won her third junior Grand Slam doubles title of the year. Props to you, girl.

After the Wall Street Journal published an article about Townsend’s recent experiences with the USTA, Patrick McEnroe, the director of the USTA’s player development program, denied that the USTA had declined to fund Townsend’s expenses for the Open due to her weight. Well, of course he did. McEnroe has said that this whole thing was a “miscommunication” and that the USTA always planned on reimbursing Townsend for her expenses at the Open. Right. Anyone for ocean-front property in Nebraska?

Listen, this is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives at a tennis academy run by the USTA.  She is number one in the world at what she does and you cannot be number one in the world at anything without working really hard.  The girl works hard and I am guessing that she could run circles around a lot of 120-pound supposedly fit women, including myself.  (Ok, well, 130 pounds.  Ish.  And now I am illustrating the point.)  If perhaps she needs a little more conditioning (which she has acknolwedged might be the case), well, whose fault is that, given that she lives in your facility?  But, let’s not make this about her weight.  Haven’t we already been through this with Serena Williams?  Haven’t we all learned yet that one’s body type does not always equal one’s level of fitness and health?  When are we going to stop telling young girls and women that, no matter what they do or how hard they work, they are going to ultimately be judged by the way they look and numbers on a scale?  Seriously, when?  We live in a society where 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 think they are overweight and 80% of 13-year-olds have tried to lose weight.

Every day girls are bombarded with images of beautiful, airbrushed images of unattainable perfection in magazines and on television.  They are constantly being told in those same magazines how to make themselves more beautiful.  It is time for us, as a society, to start telling them that it is not their weight or the beauty products that they buy that makes them beautiful, but, rather, their character and their spirit. Yes, we want our girls to be healthy and fit. Let’s teach them how to do that without this focus on weight. And then we will all be better off.

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

• Tennis
• Sports

View Original Post at draftdaysuit.com

View GoonSquadSarah's Full Profile