18-year-old Taylor Townsend is winning matches, and fans, at her first Grand Slam

With the state of U.S. Men's tennis looking ever bleaker, more focus is being directed at the American women, who haven't sustained the collective recent struggles of their male counterparts. Unfortunately, those women suffered a serious blow at the 2014 French Open, with both Serena and Venus Williams bowing out in the second round on Wednesday.

Serena's loss was particularly destabilizing, as she came into the Open as the prohibitive favorite. Despite holding onto her No. 1 ranking by a substantial margin, there are questions about whether the 32-year-old's reign of dominance might soon be coming to an end. This is the third in four Grand Slams in which she's failed to make it past the fourth round. 

Even if she bounces back, as many expect her to, Williams won't be around forever, and the search is already on for the Next Big Thing in American women's tennis. 21-year-old Sloane Stephens, the second-ranked American, built up a ton of credibility with a breakout 2013, which featured a quarterfinal showing at Wimbledon and a semifinal berth at the Australian Open (where she shocked Serena in the quarters). 

But Stephens stumbled out of the gate in 2014 and has yet to get on track, compiling just an 11-11 record and failing to pull her ranking up out of the middling 10-20 range it's been stuck in since her breakout last year. She has still yet to win a WTA singles title.  

Enter Taylor Townsend, the ascendant 18-year-old who, having won the junior Aussie Open in 2012 and making the finals of junior Wimbledon in 2013, is playing in her first Grand Slam as a pro. The current 205th-ranked player on tour dug herself out of a 1-5 first-set hole in the first round against Vania King, claiming 12 of the final 13 games en route to a stunning 7-5, 6-1 victory. 

On Wednesday in round two, she took on No. 20 Alize Cornet of France. Ceding home-court advantage to a seeded opponent didn't faze the young debutante, who powered her way to a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win. She's the youngest U.S. woman to make the third round at Roland Garros since 2003. 

It's an important breakthrough for Townsend, on a personal level as much as a professional one. Back in 2012, while she was the top-ranked junior in the world, the USTA held her out of the junior U.S. Open, citing concerns about her health and fitness. Her coaches declined to pay her travel expenses to attend the Open and told her that summer that they wouldn't finance any tournament appearances until she slimmed down. 

The decision was seen by many as sexist and superficial, one based solely on appearances. As Slate wrote at the time, "women’s tennis has soaked up so much publicity from its blond bombshells—Azarenka, Sharapova, Kournikova—that those in charge have somehow mistaken willowy good looks for skill."

That's what makes Townsend's performance in her maiden Grand Slam so satisfying. Once accused of not being fit enough to compete on the junior circuit, she's now rolling over the ranks of the pros, with an exciting and creative power-baseline game. She's making fans in the process, too: 

"It made me stronger as a person," said Townsend of dealing with the USTA ordeal, "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." 

If her first foray into Grand Slam competition is any indication, the fate of American women's tennis should be in good hands moving forward.