"This is crazy, I'm so shocked": Taylor Townsend shares her disbelief after seeing food options at Billie Jean King Cup venue for Kazakhstan vs USA QF

Taylor Townsend recently documented her shenanigans at the Billie Jean King Cup team dinner ahead of USA's quarterfinal tie against Kazakhstan in Shenzhen, China. The doubles World No. 1 was admittedly at odds with some of the food items that were served to the players, and she let her fans know just that in hilarious fashion.

This week, Townsend joins fellow Americans Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro, McCartney Kessler, and Hailey Baptiste as the four-time champions vie for a semifinal spot at the BJK Cup. With their last-eight fixture against Kazakhstan looming on Thursday (September 18), the 29-year-old enjoyed the team dinner with her compatriots earlier on Tuesday.

At one point, Taylor Townsend was visibly shocked at the large Chinese sausages that were being served at the buffet. If the two-time Majors titlist's latest Instagram stories are anything to go by, the state of the food prompted her to turn to Baptiste and make some comments that were clearly an innuendo.

"Day 3, dinner and look... Yo, what the hell? What the helly, I'm saying?" Taylor Townsend said in one of her Instagram stories. "You guys, this is crazy... This angle is f***ing nuts. This is crazy! I've never seen one of these up close," she insisted in a separate story.

Townsend's shock was visible on her face well after she was done with dinner. In one of her last stories, the American inferred that she didn't understand the Chinese people's food choices.

"I'm just here, doing recovery, and I'm honestly just so shocked. I think what I saw in the dinner buffet, I'm like, 'These people are really killing bullfrogs, aren't those poisonous?'" she said. "Aren't those the ones that are giving you warts and boils? And turtles? And the fact that it's all stewed up with chili, peppers, and onions. Like, 'Oh, you really made this a dish.'"

Via Taylor Townsend Instagram stories

Later this week, USA will be eager to beat Kazakhstan, which has fielded the likes of Elena Rybakina and Yulia Putintseva as its top singles players. Although the Americans have secured four BJK Cup titles to date, they have gone trophyless at the team event since their 2017 triumph.

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Taylor Townsend has a 4-2 positive win/loss record at BJK Cup

Taylor Townsend hits a backhand | Image Source: Getty

Although Taylor Townsend cracked the top-most rungs of women's tennis only recently, the 29-year-old has been instrumental in USA's Billie Jean King Cup campaigns since the 2022 edition, where she and Madison Keys teamed up in a dead rubber to beat the Czech Republic's Karolina Muchova and Karolina Pliskova in group-stage matches.

The following year, the then-27-year-old teamed up with Sloane Stephens to take down the Swiss team of Jil Teichmann and Simona Waltert before they were blanked by the Czech Republic's Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in their last group-stage match, thereby preventing USA from qualifying for the BJK Cup semifinals.

In 2024, Townsend joined forces with Caroline Dolehide in her country's 4-0 victory against Marie Benoit and Kimberley Zimmermann in the first qualifying round. The American then picked up her first-ever singles win at the team competition by beating Slovakia's Renata Jamrichova, before she and Ashlyn Krueger dropped the tie 1-2 by virtue of their doubles defeat to Viktória Hruncakova and Tereza Mihalíkova.

This week, she can secure her fifth career win at the BJK Cup and will team up with McCartney Kessler to take on Kazakhstan's Anna Danilina and Zhibek Kulambayeva.

Edited by Rudra Biswas