Taylor Townsend savored a career-defining US Open campaign, advancing to the second week of singles competition and claiming the doubles runner-up spot alongside Katerina Siniakova.

The world No. 1 doubles player shut down critics following a heated exchange with former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, who accused Townsend of having “no class” and “no education” after their second-round battle.

The journey to the top has been challenging for Townsend, who endured body-shaming from the USTA during her junior years before stepping away from tennis temporarily to welcome her first child, son Adyn Aubrey, in 2021. The American tennis sensation has now disclosed that Serena Williams became an unexpected source of support during her pregnancy, despite the pair not being close friends.

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The two-time doubles Grand Slam winner shared with The Pivot Podcast, “I got the closest with Serena when I was pregnant.

“I went over to her house and she put a whole Amazon list together for me of all the things that I needed to get for the baby, and like those times were, that was the most conversation I had ever had with her.”

However, Townsend, who battled Williams across both singles and doubles courts during her career, acknowledges that their competitive relationship prevented a genuine friendship from developing.

“It’s honestly surreal for me. It was really cool, especially being able to experience that here. Venus and Serena, you know, I’ve looked up to them for years,” she explained.

“But even for so many years on tour, it was never like a friendship. It was, ‘I’m out here and you’re another piece of competition. If I got to take you, I gotta take you out’.

“There’s an aura where it’s like, when we in this arena, we ain’t friends with buddies, and it’s no faking the funk, you know what I’m saying.”

Townsend has also battled Venus Williams twice during recent weeks. The 45-year-old staged a triumphant comeback in Washington this past July, advancing to the second round in both singles and doubles competition.

Venus teamed up with Hailey Baptiste in doubles, where they fell to eventual champions Townsend and Zhang Shuai. Subsequently, at the recent US Open, top seeds Townsend and Katerina Siniakova defeated Venus and Leylah Fernandez in the quarter-finals.

The elder Williams sister also openly expressed her backing for Townsend following her clash with Ostapenko.

“My thoughts about it? It was a lot of drama. It was a lot of drama. I thought Taylor handled it amazing. I really did,” she said.

“I just thought with her as a mom, how she handled it, her son will be watching. Her son is watching. She handled it with class, a situation that was not so classy. Just moved on and won again.

“So she’s handling it amazing. I’m rooting for her. She’s a wonderful person, a great mum. I hope she can keep going.”

Serena Williams’s GLP-1 partnership marks a disturbing cultural turning point

Weight-loss drugs have their first global ambassador: Serena Williams. The tennis great has signed on as the face of Ro, a telehealth company prescribing GLP-1 weight loss drugs, and where her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a board member.

Announcing the partnership, she told Women’s Health: “I am a very good use case of how you can do everything – eat healthy, work out to the point of even playing a professional sport and getting to the finals of Wimbledon and US Opens – and still not be able to lose weight.”

That quote stopped me in my tracks. This is a woman who has spent decades redefining what female strength looks like: powerful, muscular and unapologetic. A 23-time grand slam winner. And yet, she frames her body as having failed her – not because it couldn’t dominate world sport or bear children or inspire millions, but because it wouldn’t shrink on demand. It is a brutal reminder that even the most accomplished women remain trapped by society’s obsession with thinness.

READ: WATCH: Venus Williams has special message for Serena after reac

Here’s something else I can’t shake about her statement: if even at this point, after years of peak training, discipline and sacrifice, Serena “couldn’t” lose weight, maybe that’s because she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe that was simply her body operating as and where it was meant to. The idea that natural biology is a problem to be solved is precisely what keeps us all – and let’s be honest, mainly women – stuck in relentless cycles of correction.

Serena won’t be the last celebrity to front a weight-loss drug campaign, but she is the first of her magnitude to do so. With 18.2 million followers on Instagram alone and a global reputation as one of the most successful athletes of all time, her influence is seismic. To see her now enlisted to normalise and promote medical weight-loss drugs, complete with a glossy photoshoot showing her injecting the jab into several places in her body, feels like a cultural turning point.

The sight of Serena, whose body has long symbolised defiance of narrow beauty ideals, promoting weight-loss injections compelled me to speak out in a recent video. The video resonated: so many people messaged me with concerns, confusion, even despair – what does this mean for progress? But it also drew criticism. Serena is a Black woman, and I can never fully understand the scale of misogynoir – the specific blend of racism and sexism – that she has endured in her career. Some argued that her decision to front this campaign must be understood within the context of a lifetime spent under the uniquely harsh scrutiny of her body.

This context matters immensely. The pressures Serena has faced are both universal to women and uniquely intensified by racism. Yet acknowledging this complexity doesn’t negate the broader cultural implications of her new role.

The rise of GLP-1 drugs has been meteoric and astonishing. Originally designed for diabetes care, they are now prescribed at scale for weight loss. And society celebrates them, because thinness is seen as universally desirable, something we should all pursue at any cost. So while individual choice and bodily autonomy must always be respected, we also need to be clear: these medications are drugs, not beauty aids or lifestyle accessories. They carry risks, have often serious side effects, and their long-term safety in non-diabetic populations isn’t fully known. Clinical evidence suggests that without addressing a user’s underlying relationship with food and body image, these medications may actually intensify preoccupation with weight and eating.

This unfolds against a backdrop that once seemed hopeful. For a while, it felt as though the tide was turning when it came to beauty standards: fashion campaigns featured bigger bodies, the media embraced body diversity, and conversations about self-worth and liberation from diet culture were breaking into the mainstream. But the pendulum has swung back with force: restriction is in and thinness is once again being loudly celebrated – except this time, it’s being sold through syringes.

The risk is clear: older generations who carry the scars of diet culture are being pulled back into old patterns, while younger generations are watching their idols casually endorse injections to stay slim. They may be savvier, more outspoken about mental health, and more prone to critical thinking than their elders, but they are also vulnerable to these cultural pressures.

So what can we do? We can protect our body image fiercely while questioning the messaging that surrounds us and remember that health, worth and beauty are not synonyms for thinness. Most critically, we must teach the next generation that their bodies are not lifelong correction projects.

Serena Williams is a sporting legend and always will be. But this partnership points to something alarming: a future where medical weight-loss drugs are marketed as casually as makeup and where thinness is no longer an aspiration but an expectation, enforced by a prescription. We have to resist that future. We have to protect ourselves and the next generation from a culture that reduces our worth to our body size and sells weight loss as the ultimate goal.

Serena Williams faces backlash after admitting to weight-loss drug use

Serena Williams has found herself at the center of a heated debate after openly revealing that she turned to weight-loss medication to shed more than 30 pounds.

The 43-year-old tennis icon, who has inspired millions with her dominance on the court, faced immediate criticism online after announcing her new partnership with GLP-1 medicine company Ro.

On Thursday, the brand shared a joint Instagram post showing Williams injecting herself with the weekly treatment. In the video, the 23-time Grand Slam champion explained that the medicine was something her body “needed” following the birth of her two daughters.

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Her candid admission, however, drew sharp backlash. Many fans argued that Williams’ endorsement could set a harmful precedent, particularly for young athletes and women struggling with body image.

One commenter wrote, “As an athlete and an influencer, it’s a shame that you’re reiterating the narrative that you need to take medication to be healthy and achieve an acceptable standard of beauty. This video made me really sad and disappointed.” Another added, “‘After kids this is the medicine my body needed.’ Needed? Fantastic, now we can undo all the progression we made on letting women know it’s ok to take time, recover and get back in shape or not to.”

A divisive moment for an inspirational figure

For decades, Williamshas been celebrated for her strength, resilience, and groundbreaking achievements in a sport that has not always been welcoming to women of color. That legacy, critics argue, makes her decision to promote weight-loss injections especially fraught.

“The messaging here is so wrong coming from an athlete like her and very dangerous for society,” one fan commented, while another said, “You can put whatever you want in your body but let’s not call it healthcare! This is so disturbing to me coming from a former elite athlete.”

A fifth person went further, calling it a “terrible message to our youth,” particularly young female athletes who may view Williams as a role model.

Despite the criticism, Williams insists she made the decision for her own health and wellbeing. Speaking to People earlier this week, she said, “I feel great. I feel really good and healthy. I feel light physically and light mentally.”

The four-time Olympic gold medalist revealed that her weight struggles began in 2017 after delivering her eldest daughter, Alexis Olympia, via emergency C-section.

“I never was able to get to the weight I needed to be, no matter what I did, no matter how much I trained,” she admitted. “It was crazy because I’d never been in a place like that in my life where I worked so hard, ate so healthy and could never get down to where I needed to be at.”

Williams said she researched Ro extensively before beginning treatment six months after the birth of her second daughter, Adira, in August 2023.

While her openness has sparked outrage in some circles, it has also fueled broader conversations about postpartum health, the pressures of body image, and the increasing normalization of celebrity endorsements for weight-loss medications.

Whether fans view her choice as empowering honesty or a harmful example, Williams’ revelation underscores the complex intersection of sports, wellness, and cultural expectations around women’s bodies.