feature: chicago teen tennis champion taylor townsend faced body-shaming

Chicago teen Taylor Townsend made a lot of noise with her performance at the French Open but WTF is up with the body-shaming she’s been subjected to? The New York Times reports: “at the United States Open junior tournament [in 2012], the United States Tennis Association wanted to keep her out of the tournament because it believed her physical conditioning was lacking, even though she was the top-ranked junior girl in the world. She entered the tournament anyway and reached the quarterfinals. Reports of the weight-based dispute quickly drew the ire of many.
In the tumultuous 20 months that followed, Townsend parted with her U.S.T.A. coaches and began working with Zina Garrison, a former Wimbledon finalist, and Kamau Murray, a tennis coach she has known since she was 6.

“It made me stronger as a person, it made me stronger as a tennis player, and it made me stronger in the sense of knowing that what I went through helped other people,” Townsend said.”
Full piece here.