Is Taylor Townsend Finally Set to Breakthrough Once Again?

I remember the 2014 French Open like it was yesterday. I remember following the live score of the Final between Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep, in awe with both of their abilities to hang in a match and fight. However, another huge reason why the 2014 French Open sticks out to me is because of Taylor Townsend's run to the Third Round.

Receiving a wildcard because of two straight tournament victories in $50k tournaments, Townsend made the most of her opportunity. In the First Round, Townsend easily beat Vania King in straight sets. However, her Second Round match against Alize Cornet is why this tournament was truly memorable for Townsend.  Against a higher ranked and home-country favorite, Taylor was up a set and a double break in the second set before Cornet won five straight games to even the match up.

With seemingly everything going against her, it would have been easy for Taylor to let the match slip away. However, in that third set, Taylor immediately got up a double break and held on to win 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. And while she did lose in the next round to Carla Suarez Navarro, who is very accomplished on clay courts, 6-2, 6-2, the future was looking very bright for Townsend. Perhaps she would be the one to take over after the Williams sisters retired as the face of American women's tennis. This wsa certainly a breakthrough for Taylor Townsend. However, in the coming years, there would be many ups and downs for the young American.

Townsend had pretty good results for the rest of 2014. She qualified and made the Round of 16 at a tournament in Washington D.C., she qualified and won a match in the main draw in Cincinnati, and she reached the Semifinals of another $50k tournament. However, 2015 is where things started to spiral downwards for Taylor. Townsend struggled to win matches, losing in the First Round at tournaments such as the Australian Open, Monterrey, Strasbourg, and the French Open. In fact, Townsend was having major difficulties even winning a match at the $25k tournament level. She lost her First Round matches in $25k tournaments in Sumter and Baton Rouge.

2016 was a major turnaround year for Townsend. I will spare you from hearing the story of her match against Gail Falkenberg again, but I do think that this match spurred Townsend to really turnaround her game and strive for greatness. Townsend ended up making the Semifinals of that tournament in Pelham before winning a $50k tournament and making the Final of two other $50k tournaments (which got her a French Open wildcard). In addition, earlier in the year at Indian Wells, Taylor won the pre-qualifying tournament, then qualified for the main draw.Townsend also won a round at the French Open and qualified for the US Open. 2016 could definitely be seen as a great stepping stone for Taylor Townsend's career.

So, where does Townsend stand in 2017? Townsend started off the year in decent form, winning a couple qualifying matches in both Auckland and the Australian Open, but failing to qualify for either tournament. Townsend played two Australian $60k tournaments, making the Semifinals of one and losing in the First Round of the other.

Townsend's season, however, is definitely on an upwards trajectory. In Auckland, she qualified without losing a set. Townsend then beat Jennifer Brady, who had beaten Taylor in the same round at the Australian Open earlier in the season. While Townsend lost to Christina McHale in the next round, after struggling to qualify for tournaments earlier in the year, it was great to see Taylor qualify and win a round at a WTA tournament. The fact that she beat a player she had lost to previously in the year was an added bonus.

Taylor struggled in Indian Wells, losing in the First Round against Magda Linette. I watched a good portion of that match and Taylor was not getting a lot of power on her shots. In addition, Townsend's shots were just landing too short in the court to really gain the upper hand against Linette in rallies. However, Townsend's fortunes changed in Miami.

In Miami, Taylor not only qualified without losing a set, but she beat a very accomplished player, Mona Barthel, in the process. In the main draw, Townsend came back from a set down to beat Anisimova and then scored a huge victory against Roberta Vinci, only losing five games in the process. And while Townsend did lose in straight sets to two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, she was up a break in the first set, and the tournament can definitely be seen as a huge success.

As one can see from the trajectory of Taylor's recent years playing professional tennis, Townsend certainly goes through some ups and downs in terms of results. Take the past three tournaments she played. She went qualifying and winning a round in Acapulco, to easily losing in her first match at Indian Wells (she got a wild card into the main draw), to qualifying and winning two matches in Miami.

Townsend can certainly play at a high level, but for her to breakthrough once again, it will take consistent good results. Townsend is a very talented player, she certainly has a very good net game. However, at number 103 in the WTA live rankings, Townsend does not have a lot of room for error, especially if she is looking to make the main draw of the French Open without qualifying. Taylor needs to bring her A-game every week, no matter if she is playing in a $25k tournament or a Grand Slam.

However, I think that Townsend can breakthrough once again and become a top 50 player. When Taylor is playing well, as players such as Cornet and Vinci learned, she is tough to beat. Hopefully she is very confident from her run in Miami and takes this confidence with her into the clay court season, which suits her game very well.

In sum, I believe that Taylor Townsend is finally set to breakthrough once agian.

Should Maria Sharapova Receive Wildcards to Majors?

Maria Sharapova has been subject to a big debate in recent days. After receiving a wildcard to many clay court tournaments following the end of her ban on April 26th, which starts with her inclusion in the WTA tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, the question then becomes whether or not Sharapova should receive a wildcard into the remaining majors of this season, with the French Open and Wimbledon in the not-so-distant future.

The chief of the French tennis is showing reluctance to give her a wildcard due to the hypocrisy of giving Sharapova a wildcard. France has invested a ton of money into anti-doping campaign and is, thus, undecided about whether or not to give one to the two-time Roland Garros champion. In addition, Andy Murray doesn't think dopers should receive any wildcards at all, and thinks that Wimbledon will look at the situation very closely before deciding whether or not Sharapova will receive a wildcard. Needless to say, the debate on whether or not Maria deserves wildcards into majors, and really into any tournament, is very hot right now.

So, what are my thoughts regarding this issue? Let me start off by saying that it is ultimately the tournament's decision whether or not a player will receive a wildcard into a tournament or not. People like Murray (and myself) can give their opinions, but ultimately tournament directors get to make that call. Sharapova is certainly a big name in women's tennis, and to have her in tournaments like the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix certainly will help sell tickets and draw attention to the tournaments that she plays in, especially if she goes up against another "big name" in the sport. The WTA is ultimately a business, and revenue is a huge concern. So, of course, from a business perspective, having Maria Sharapova in tournaments is a good idea. Sharapova is a tennis player that even non-tennis fans will know.

However, from a moralistic standpoint, I am not sure how tournament directors can justify giving Sharapova wildcard. Ultimately, whether you think meldonium should be banned or not, it is a banned substance. And by taking that substance after it had been banned, Sharapova cheated. Maria Sharapova created an unbalanced playing field when she took meldonium, no matter the circumstances surrounding her meldonium use, which I find to be very suspicious anyways.

Murray has a great point when he talks about the importance of players who have cheated needing to work their ways back up the rankings as opposed to be gifted with wildcards to huge tournaments, which also include the opportunity to receive big prize money and ranking points. Perhaps it would be humbling for Sharapova, and lessen the chances that she doped again, if she had to play in tiny ITF tournaments against other players with similar rankings. That would provide Sharapova with an opportunity for reflection and the realization that her actions do have stiff consequences, even upon the conclusion of her ban.

But, by giving her countless wildcards, does Sharapova even learn her lesson? If the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open all decide to give wildcards to Sharapova (if she needs the wildcards for the latter two majors), then this would exasperate the issues discussed above. Majors have so much media attention, so much prize money, so many ranking points, that Sharapova would be missing a crucial consequence of her ban if she was gifted a place into these tournaments.

I'm not saying that Sharapova will spend the rest of her career playing tiny tournaments. I'm sure she would win many of the ITF tournaments she would enter and quickly would progress back to the main WTA Tour. However, in a situation such as this, the ban is only the first part of Sharapova's punishment. The second part is having to work her way back up to the level she was once at, and by giving Sharapova countless wildcards, and especially wildcards to majors, this part of her punishment is lost.

Therefore, I do not think Maria Sharapova should wildcards to majors. Honestly, I don't think Sharapova should receive any wildcards at all.