For Taylor Townsend, this US Open feels ‘completely different’ — Andscape

NEW YORK — To understand just how recognizable Taylor Townsend has become while advancing to Week 2 of the US Open for just the second time in her career, you need to look no further than a post over the summer on her Instagram page.

There’s Townsend on the clip walking the grounds of the All England Club, asking people: “Does anybody know who Taylor Townsend Is?”

Many had no clue. “A little bit of an ego hit,” Townsend said at the end of the video. “Leave it to Wimbledon to humble you.”

Townsend’s ego has certainly gotten a boost over a three-day stretch that lifted her from anonymity to trending worldwide, which all started with a tense post-match encounter on Wednesday and continued with Friday’s late night one-sided win over No. 5 seed Mirra Andreeva. The win advanced Townsend to the second week here for the first time since 2019.

“All I’m going to say is welcome to the show,” Townsend said in her on-court interview following Friday’s win. “I feel amazing.”

From a tennis perspective, just call it Townsend’s best week ever. 

That’s not just about her accomplishments: Townsend has won Grand Slam titles (two in doubles), and in July rose to the top ranking in the world among doubles players.

That’s based on her proven ability to meeting the moment with her tennis (Townsend made Andreeva look lost, confused and — despite her high ranking — every bit of an 18 year-old unable to seize a big moment), and with her ability to rise above a contentious situation when she said Jelena Ostapenko labeled her as having no class and uneducated following their match on Wednesday.

“I’m proud of myself for the way that I was able to be mentally tough and stay locked in in the moments that matter,” Townsend said Wednesday following that incident with Ostapenko. “I know that I’m a fantastic tennis player, and I know that I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish, and this is another stepping stone. It’s another brick that I’m laying on my foundation or on my road to greatness.”

Ostapenko, whose tournament ended when she was eliminated in doubles on Thursday, issued an apology on Saturday on social media.

Townsend was told about the apology after her doubles win yesterday, playing with Katerina Siniakova (6-3, 6-3).

“I didn’t know,” Townsend said when asked her thoughts about the apology. “I didn’t know what she said. But I’m still here. So I’m glad that she has the time to be able to do that.”

While she’s top-ranked in doubles, Townsend is currently ranked 139th in singles — a ranking that will definitely get a boost at the conclusion of this year’s US Open. The win over No. 5 Andreeva was her third career win over a top-10 player, having defeated Jessica Pegula (No. 3) at the 2023 Italian Open and Simona Halep (No. 4) here in 2019.

“I felt like that match, when I played Halep, was a turning point for me,” Townsend said. “I just felt like it helped validate me as a player.”

That win over Halep didn’t garner any media attention for Townsend; much of the spotlight was centered on Serena Williams and her pursuit of another major championship (she reached her last Grand Slam final here that year, losing to Bianca Andreescu).

In fact, her only one-on-one interview after that win over Halep was with Andscape when she spoke about her lowest moment in her journey (playing a 69-year-old in a tournament in 2016), and how even as she rose to be the top-ranked junior tennis player in the world the USTA refused to pay her way to the 2012 US Open and other tournaments until she lost weight.

[The USTA, facing criticism from the likes of Williams and Lindsay Davenport, eventually reversed course and reimbursed Townsend’s travel costs].

“When personal issues are publicized … that’s always attached to you,” Townsend told Andscape in 2019. “It’s been a long road, a lot of haters.”

Townsend’s road to success at this week’s US Open, is similar to how she did it in 2019: a serve-and-volley style of tennis that, in this age of power play from the baseline, leaves opponents perplexed. When Halep was asked in 2019 whether she had ever played against someone who rushed the net as much as Townsend, she replied “Never. Never.”

As Team Townsend prepares for Sunday’s Round of 16 match against unseeded Barbora Krejčíková (2024 Wimbledon champion, 2021 French Open champion), they have to be saying to themselves “Why not us?” in this day of women’s tennis where six different women have won in the last 10 Grand Slam tournaments.

It’s been six years since Townsend’s only other appearance in Week 2 of a slam, and she admits back in 2019 she was still in search of who she was as a player and a person.

“This time it just feels completely different; I wasn’t searching for anything, I wasn’t looking, trying to find answers, I had all the answers in here,” Townsend said, tapping her heart. “That’s what’s really cool about tennis in these moments, you’re able to reflect and look even at the mannerisms and how I carried myself then and now. You’ll be able to see it’s a different woman.”

A woman who, for a time last week, was probably the most talked about female athlete on the planet — which means the days of going unrecognized if she were to be dropped in the middle of a major tennis venue are over.

“I said to my team, Dang, I didn’t know this many people had my phone number,” Townsend said of the text messages she has received over the past few days. “People being able to see me now but then being able to go back into history — or my history — and follow my journey and figure out how she has gotten here, I think that’s super cool.”