Townsend's success has also been helpful in silencing the critics

Townsend's success has also been helpful in silencing the critics. She splits her training time between Chicago, where she began playing and first met Murray at the age of 6, and Washington, D.C., where she trains with former Wimbledon runner-up Zina Garrison.
Ranked number one in the world in the junior division in 2012, Townsend burst onto the Grand Slam scene this year, reaching the third round in the French Open and also earning wild-card berths to participate in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, where she lost to Serena Williams, the tournament's eventual winner, in the first round last month.

Another statistics also serve to quiet the critics: a total of 22 XS Tennis players have earned full-ride college scholarships and the organization's free in-school tennis programs serves 2,000 CPS students annually.

Murray compared the impact of his pupil's success to that of the Jackie Robinson West youth baseball team, who earlier this year won the U.S. championship at the Little League World Series. Given his program's growth, he hopes other minority tennis clubs across the country will duplicate the model he's created and spread additional access to the sport to black neighborhoods.

"Taylor is a living, breathing example of what is possible if you have access," he said. "And she should not be the last kid to make it out of the city of Chicago [in tennis]."

Besides easing the worries of potential investors, Townsend's rise has also had a major impact on the other young players training at the center.