Bianca Andreescu Makes the Case for More Attention in Her Victory Over Taylor Townsend

Bianca Andreescu turned nineteen in June. A few months before that, in March, she surprised the tennis world by winning the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. Then, in August, after playing no tennis for months as she nursed a shoulder injury, she won the Rogers Cup in front of her home-town fans, in Toronto—she was born, to Romanian-immigrant parents, in the city of Mississauga, a half-hour drive to the southwest. She defeated Serena Williams in the final, after Williams was forced to retire halfway through the first set, suffering from back spasms. Andreescu, who was leading the match, did not celebrate. She walked slowly toward Williams, as she sat on her chair courtside, fighting back tears. Andreescu embraced her, then knelt and complimented her in the way teen-age athletes do. “You’re a fucking beast,” she said.

Andreescu was something of a beast herself as the night of Labor Day gave way to Tuesday morning inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. She was playing the American Taylor Townsend in the fourth round at the U.S. Open, and she scuffled and snarled—battling with herself as much as with Townsend—and finally struggled to a patchy but wildly entertaining victory, 6–1, 4–6, 6–2. The win earns Andreescu a spot in the women’s quarter-finals. In recent years, only two teen-age players have advanced as far: Ana Konjuh, of Croatia, and Belinda Bencic, of Switzerland. (Bencic, who is now twenty-two, upset the No. 1 seed, Naomi Osaka, earlier on Monday, to move on to the quarter-finals.) Andreescu had never played in the main draw at the U.S. Open before this year; last August, she was ranked No. 178 in the world and lost in the first round of qualifying. But she has played and beaten the kinds of players who tend to go deep at Grand Slams. Her record this year against players ranked in the Top 10 is 7–0.

Townsend arrived in Flushing ranked No. 116, and had to play a week of qualifying matches to get into the main draw. In 2012, when she was sixteen, she was the top-ranked junior player in the world, but her transition to the top-tier has been bumpy. That same year, the United States Tennis Association notoriously declined to cover her travel expenses for tournaments unless she lost weight. The decision was criticized by Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport, among others, and the U.S.T.A. eventually reimbursed Townsend’s family for those costs. But she struggled to beat the best players in the world with her old-school serve-and-volley game—Townsend plays the kind of tennis that Martina Navratilova more or less took with her when she retired from the singles tour, twenty-five years ago. And yet she entered Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night on a thrilling ride. She had been net-charging to wins—including one over Simona Halep—and gathering raucous fan support for her rare attacking style and the warm sense of humor she displayed in the on-court interviews that followed win after win.

Andreescu, who is in the Top 20 despite missing many tournaments, arrived prepared for Townsend’s net-rushing. She situated herself on the baseline—even, at times, a step inside the court—to return serves; in the first games of the opening set, she took balls early and passed Townsend down the line a number of times with clean winners. She lobbed against Townsend, too, and won a couple of points on delicately brushed drop shots. Andreescu is one of the young players in women’s tennis embracing an all-court game: varying pace, probing an opponent, searching for angles, coming forward when the opportunity is there. She has the potential to be among the very best, a Martina Hingis with size and power.

She took the first set quickly, but not as easily as the scoreline suggests. Her first serve was off: she double-faulted five times in the first set, and the double faults continued into the second set. Then Andreescu started making more errors on her groundstrokes. During the first set, when Townsend pressed forward, Andreescu kept her forehands and backhands flat and hard, the better to pass. But, in the second set, Townsend chose to stay back and rally with Andreescu, and she managed to absorb Andreescu’s pace and fuel lengthier rallies—and win them, as Andreescu’s hard, flat strokes flew long or found the net. Townsend’s tactical shift appeared to unsettle Andreescu, who muttered and fidgeted and stomped. She tossed her racquet, incurring a warning from the umpire. Serving at 4–5, and facing a break point that was also set point, Andreescu double-faulted. She then took a long bathroom break. Townsend stayed loose by jumping rope. Most of the seats in Ashe were empty, but fans here and there jumped in place along with her. It was after midnight.

It was Andreescu who shifted tactics in the third set, dialing back her pace, lofting more looped balls deep, and slicing short and low. Townsend had no answer. Her tennis is not baseline tennis. After saving four match points on her serve, to hold at 2–5, she tried coming in a couple of times with Andreescu serving, to no avail. Today, at the élite level of tennis, with racquets strung with spin-inducing polyester, and women able to hit groundstrokes that approach ninety miles per hour, serve-and-volley and chip-and-charge will always be at a disadvantage. Townsend netted one last short backhand, and the match was over. Andreescu seemed relieved as she hugged Townsend at the net, but, as she turned to what was left of the crowd, the look on her young face was one of assurance.