Taylor Townsend’s fairytale run at the US Open has come to an end, halted by the two-time Grand Slam champion Barbora Krejčíková in agonising fashion.
Losing to a player of her calibre is far from embarrassing, but the manner of her defeat was crushing.
The American squandered eight match points before surrendering the second set in a tiebreak, and would go on to lose the deciding third set.
It was heartbreaking to watch, and marked an emotional exit to what has been a tumultuous singles tournament for Taylor Townsend.
However, Jim Courier and Lindsay Davenport are both unsurprisingly positive about what the future holds for her.
Jim Courier offers Taylor Townsend advice after US Open exit
Speaking on Tennis Channel, it was the former of the duo who kick-started their analysis, offering advice to the 29-year-old and her coaching staff.
He noted: “Coaches play a lot of different roles: player development, the technique, the tactical.
“But the emotional piece is going to be massive here. It’s gonna be really important for them, once the emotion comes out of it, they’ve got to figure out, okay, let’s go out into the tactical. What didn’t you do?
“You dropped your speed of shots at the critical times. How do we actually stay focused and play the same way at the critical junctures that got us to that position?
“She’ll need to actually focus in on a couple of things that she can do better the next time she gets in that situation, but you’ve got to get the emotional piece sort of behind you first before logic can actually take hold.”
This provoked Davenport to note: “Yeah, between the second and third sets, Krejčíková went off the court for about eight minutes, and Taylor didn’t leave the court. She went over to her camp and her coach, John Williams. They’ve been working together for four years, he said, ‘I’m not seeing Taylor hit the ball like Taylor can hit the ball.’
“It was obvious there that those speeds dropped; the average ground stroke speed went down to 60 in that tiebreak. So it’s just something, if you put yourself in that position time and time again, you want to be able to change things. She didn’t come to net either.
“So, she just wasn’t willing to go after it and take it. I mean, she came within a couple of millimetres, so we wouldn’t even be talking about that if one of those shots from Krejčíková had been going out.”
Fortunately, her time in New York is not completely over, as Davenport continued: “But she’s back here for doubles.
“Let’s see if she can get a Grand Slam title in doubles and kind of leave here on a positive note.
“Armstrong was packed. There was not an empty seat. Everybody cheering for her, so she still has a lot of great memories and emotions from here.”
Taylor Townsend’s best-ever singles Grand Slam performance
Given that the bulk of the headlines last week were stolen by Jelena Ostapenko’s comments aimed at Townsend, it can’t be forgotten what a fairytale run this has been for the two-time doubles Grand Slam champion.
After all, this fourth-round exit marks the furthest she has ever gone in a singles major, matching her US Open run in 2019.
She started her tournament off with a routine win over Antonia Ružić, before that controversial win over Ostapenko soured things.
Townsend was not unsettled though, continuing her remarkable form to dump out the fifth seed Mirra Andreeva in straight sets.
And, had she converted one of the eight match points she forged against Krejčíková, she would be a quarter-finalist now.
Initially, this will be so hard to take. But in the years going forward, Townsend should take so much pride from how she’s handled herself both on and off the court.
