Wheelchair tennis prodigy sues USTA, accuses her ex-coach of grooming her

Angelina “Gaila” Fosbinder, one of the best young wheelchair tennis athletes in the world, is accusing her former coach of grooming her when she was 16, according to a new federal lawsuit.

Fosbinder said the United States Tennis Association (USTA) ignored her coach’s misconduct then ostracized her when she reported it, and her tennis career fell apart.

Fosbinder filed a lawsuit in Orlando last month against her former coach, Taylor Wingate, and the USTA, which operates a training center in Orlando’s Lake Nona.

In 2025, Wingate was permanently banned from USTA-sanctioned events.

“The safety of athletes is the USTA’s highest priority, and we maintain a zero-tolerance policy for abuse of any kind. We recognize Gaila Fosbinder’s strength in coming forward,” USTA said in a statement this week. “No athlete should ever have to go through what she has described.”

Florida Politics reached out to Wingate but did not receive a response.

For Fosbinder, who has severe disabilities, tennis gave her strength and self-confidence. Fosbinder was born in Ukraine with a rare condition affecting her joints and muscles that contorts her limbs and makes it difficult to build body mass.

She was adopted from an orphanage at age 4 and raised in the United States by her adoptive mom, a North Carolina employment lawyer who loved tennis.

That led to Fosbinder picking up the racket at age 8. By 16, she started playing exclusively in a wheelchair.

Top athletes in the adaptive sport compete in the Paralympics and tournaments around the world. In 2021, the International Tennis Federation named Fosbinder the female Wheelchair Tennis Junior of the Year.

“At the height of her junior career, Plaintiff achieved a world junior ranking of No. 10 in wheelchair tennis,” her lawsuit said.

Her talent brought extraordinary opportunities to train, meet tennis legends like Venus Williams and Billie Jean King, attend the U.S. Open, and became an ambassador for the sport.

“I hope to bring more awareness to wheelchair and standing adaptive tennis. I want to represent the youth with disabilities in tennis and make them proud,” Fosbinder wrote in 2019 for a USTA story.

Fosbinder worked with her coach, Wingate, who also was a successful wheelchair tennis player himself.

A 2022 Charlotte Observer story described their practices together as “full of wisecracks and gentle trash talk.”

But Fosbinder’s lawsuit said that behind the scenes, her 32-year-old coach began grooming her when she was 16.

“Soon after beginning the coach-athlete relationship, Wingate began blurring clear professional boundaries,” her lawsuit reads. 

Wingate told the teen she was “mature for her age” and brought up sex in flirty text messages full of emojis, the lawsuit said.

For the first time in her life, a male was showing her attention, which made Fosbinder susceptible to be victimized, her attorney, Amy Judkins, told Florida Politics in an interview.

“She’s holding him in this almost hero-like status and then he starts showing an interest in her and was really able to pray on her vulnerabilities that way,” Judkins said. “Her mom saw Taylor Wingate as a trusted coach who was able to guide Gaila and really had no idea that it had gotten inappropriate.”

Judkins declined to immediately share any of Wingate and Fosbinder’s text messages with Florida Politics. 

“There’s years of messages back and forth. There’s just a lot,” Judkins said.

The lawsuit described a power imbalance between the teenager and her older coach, who had been affiliated with the USTA since 2015.

“After months of increasingly familiar, complimentary, and inappropriate communications initiated by Wingate, and other grooming behaviors, (Fosbinder) — then a minor — felt significant pressure to maintain closeness with Wingate and to please him both on and off the court. This pressure arose, at least in part, from Wingate’s position of authority over (her) training, competitive opportunities, and athletic advancement, as well as his age, influence, and status within the tennis community,” the lawsuit said. 

Wingate also acted inappropriately with Fosbinder in public, so the USTA should have seen what was happening, the lawsuit alleged.

“In 2019, while attending a tennis tournament sanctioned and governed by the USTA in South Carolina, and while (Fosbinder) was still sixteen years old, Wingate directed (her) to sit on his lap and placed his hands on her thighs in a flirtatious and sexualized manner,” her lawsuit said.

“These actions constituted inappropriate physical contact between a coach and a minor athlete and were open, obvious, and observable by other USTA members, participants, and employees present at the tournament.”

Fosbinder began traveling alone with her coach to tournaments and outings, her lawsuit said, alleging that Wingate began to give her alcohol, marijuana and gifts.

In 2022, shortly after Fosbinder turned 18, her coach gave her alcohol, got her drunk, and they had sex, her lawsuit said.

From that point on for nearly two years, a sexual relationship between the coach and his player continued, according to the lawsuit.

“After she turned 18, it was really kind of open and obvious. They were at USTA dinners together and sharing drinks and being flirtatious, and he invites her to bars before she’s even 21 with other USTA players and employees,” Judkins said.

After a tennis lesson in June 2024, Fosbinder broke up Wingate romantically and fired him as her coach. Fosbinder had an epiphany about how inappropriate and unhealthy the situation was, and finally confided in her mother, Fosbinder’s lawyer said.

After Fosbinder dumped Wingate, the USTA dumped her, according to the suit.

“On June 24, 2024, the USTA abruptly informed (Fosbinder) that she was being removed from the Player Development Program. The decision was sudden and unexpected and was communicated in the middle of the night through email communication without any face-to-face meeting, telephone call, or other meaningful communication from the USTA regarding the reasons for her removal,” the lawsuit said.

“(Fosbinder) alleges that the abrupt termination of her position in the Player Development Program was related to the end of her relationship with Defendant Wingate and/or the circumstances surrounding that relationship.”

On Sept. 13, 2024, Fosbinder reported Wingate to the U.S. Center for SafeSport. SafeSport is the nonprofit created to investigate allegations in Olympic and Paralympic sports in the wake of Larry Nassar sexually abusing hundreds of gymnasts, and its coaches must be in compliance with the group’s “Safe Play” standards.

Within weeks, Wingate was banned from one-on-one communications with other athletes and later temporarily suspended from any USTA events, including competitions, as the SafeSport Center launched an investigation, the lawsuit said.

But that did not stop Wingate’s career, her lawsuit said, explaining that Wingate was advertised as a “head coach” at workshops and events within the USTA community.

“While the SafeSport investigation remained ongoing — and while Wingate was publicly listed by the Center as temporarily prohibited from participating, in any capacity, in any program, activity, event, or competition sponsored by the USTA — the USTA nevertheless invited Wingate to attend the 2025 US Open and provided him access to the USTA President’s Box, a prestigious privilege,” her lawsuit reads. 

Fosbinder felt like USTA didn’t take her sexual abuse allegations seriously and was instead favoring coaches over athletes in the reporting process, according to her lawsuit.

“In her mind, the USTA clearly took sides and they took sides with him,” Judkins added.

Meanwhile, Fosbinder faced a backlash from the tennis community, per her lawsuit.

“While the Center for SafeSport’s investigation remained ongoing, (Fosbinder) attempted to reconnect with local tennis groups and programs in which she had previously participated and from which she had received support and community. (She) was informed by leaders and organizers associated with those groups that they had been advised by the USTA that they could not ‘take sides’ and that (Fosbinder) should not discuss the circumstances surrounding Wingate or the SafeSport investigation at any events sponsored by these local tennis groups,” her lawsuit said.

“The totality of these communications and actions caused (Fosbinder) to feel ostracized, isolated, and effectively silenced within the sport of tennis and deprived her of the support and community she had previously relied upon.”

SafeSport eventually finished its one-year investigation and issued a lifetime ban for Wingate in the USTA.

Fosbinder’s lawyers declined to release a copy of SafeSport’s investigation. SafeSport requested the documents be kept confidential, her lawyer said. 

“We plan to seek a ruling on the confidentiality from the court, but until then we plan to honor the request of the Center,” Judkins said.

When reached for comment, SafeSport does not comment on cases “to maintain the integrity of the investigative process,” spokeswoman Allyson Neville said.

However, she pointed to the SafeSport’s public database that listed Wingate as permanently ineligible from the USTA because of his misconduct listed as “Intimate Relationship — involving a Power Imbalance; Sexual Misconduct; Physical Misconduct; Violated NGB policies/bylaws.”

Wingate appealed the SafeSport ruling, but his lifetime ban was upheld, the lawsuit said.

Fosbinder was vindicated, although it came at a cost.

After her fallout with Wingate and the USTA, Fosbinder withdrew from the Virginia Tech University wheelchair program where she had been playing and been instrumental in growing the school’s adaptive athletics program.

Today, Fosbinder is a 21-year-old college student. She struggles to get back into her wheelchair and onto the tennis court, with the emotions and anxiety too strong after what she’s gone through, Judkins said.

Her tennis career has stalled out. At least for now.