It doesn't matter how you start—but for Townsend, it matters where

“Tennis is tennis,” Taylor Townsend told Tennis Channel’s Brett Haber and Jon Wertheim after collecting her 21st match win of the 2017 season Tuesday at Roland Garros. Like a Pokémon Go addict, the 21-year-old has traveled far and wide in search of points. She played four tournaments in Australaisa—one at the Grand Slam level, one at the WTA level and two at the ITF level—before returning to North America for three hard-court events (Acapulco, Indian Wells, Miami) and three clay-court events (Charleston, Indian Harbor Beach, Dothan).

But it wasn’t until Townsend took her “if you host it, she will come” attitude to Europe that she earned her first match win on dirt. Drawn against qualifier Miyo Kato, Townsend converted six of eight break-point chances en route to a lopsided 6-4, 6-0 victory (below). Even better, she’ll avoid having to face No. 7 seed Johanna Konta in the second round, with the Brit tumbling against Hsieh Su-Wei.

Townsend’s round-one win was so one-sided that the American’s warm-up was the primary focus of her post-match conversation (below). That’s because Townsend, unlike nearly every other professional player—no matter the level of competition—begins her warm-up at the net, instead of the baseline.

“Ever since I started playing tennis—Mr. Young [Donald’s father], he can vouch for me—we’ve always just started at the net,” said Townsend. “That was always where I was the most comfortable.

“As I started to play tournaments, we always used to start practice doing volley-volley. I guess it just kind of carried over.”

Townsend’s unorthodox approach flies in the face of tradition—and to some players is an affront. At a $50K ITF tournament in Charlottesville, one opponent refused to warm-up with Townsend unless it was done in the traditional manner, with groundstrokes hit from the baseline.

“We ended up having to call the supervisor,” recalled Townsend, “It was probably 15 minutes that passed and she was like, ‘I’ll do it this one time, but next time we play I’m not doing it.’”

But tensions didn’t cool once the warm-up finally began. Townsend’s opponent (she refused to give her name) refused to feed balls that would allow her to volley. Or, worse, she aimed right at Townsend’s face.

“Every ball was coming neck or higher,” said Townsend, who used the episode to fuel her to a 6-3, 6-1 rout.

It doesn’t matter how you start, it’s how you finish: it’s a maxim of pro sports. But in tennis, and especially to Taylor Townsend, it certainly matters where you start.

Madison Keys also stopped by the Tennis Channel set for a post-match conversation at Roland Garros:

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