Townsend’s Journey To Doubles No. 1 Has Been A Long, Winding One

Taylor Townsend
Taylor Townsend (photo: Wick Photography/Mubadala Citi DC Open)

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2025 (by Michael Dickens)

It’s been 13 years since Taylor Townsend enjoyed her breakout as an ITF junior world No. 1 at age 16, when she won an Australian Open title and was a Wimbledon doubles champion in 2012.

However, the path that brought the 29-year-old Chicago native to the top of the WTA doubles rankings this week has been one filled full of judgement and criticism, setbacks and reinvention. 

Last Saturday, Townsend and Zhang Shuai of China won the Mubadala Citi DC Open doubles title, their first together as a team, breezing to a 48-minute 6-1, 6-1 victory over Caroline Dolehide and Sofia Kenin of the United States in the title match. It was the second-straight DC Open crown for Townsend, who teamed with fellow American Asia Muhammad to win the 2024 Washington, D.C. title.

“It’s super special for me,” Townsend said during her champion’s news conference, seated next to Zhang. “It was special last year even, you know, coming here. This was the first tournament after winning my first Grand Slam, and then being able to come and get the trophy here last year and then this year, obviously being able to clinch the No. 1 doubles spot in the world, and then being able to come back and get the trophy again today in the fashion that we did of being able to play at the quality and the level we played. I hold it near and dear to my heart.”

Townsend connected with Zhang last week because her regular doubles partner, 10-time major women’s doubles champion Katerina Siniakova of Czechia, was back in her home country competing in singles at the WTA 250 Prague Open. The second-seeded American/Chinese duo won all four of their matches and dropped just one set along the way at the DC Open. It was Townsend’s 10th career WTA doubles title and the 15th for Zhang. They will partner again this week in Montreal at the WTA 1000 Omnium Banquet National Nationale, where they are seeded third.

There was a just reason for Townsend to celebrate her rise to the No. 1 in the PIF WTA Ranking in doubles, after overtaking Siniakova – her partner since 2024 – when she reached the Washington, D.C. final. It ended Siniakova’s 46-week reign at No. 1, which had included titles at Wimbledon and at the year-end WTA Tour Championship with Townsend. They won the Australian Open together in January and added the WTA 1000 Dubai title in February.

While Townsend has struggled to stay ranked inside the WTA top 100 in singles – and is currently No. 75 after making a quarterfinal run in Washington, D.C. last week – doubles is where the 5-foot-7-inch (1.70 cm), lefty Townsend has excelled. This season, she has compiled a 26-5 win-loss record partnering with Siniakova in six tournaments, Dolehide once and Zhang once. Last year, she enjoyed a 30-win season while teaming primarily with Siniakova. 

Townsend said Siniakova sent her a congratulatory message on Instagram. “She replied to one of my stories. She was like, ‘You did it.’ And kind of put the teary-eyed emoji and a heart [on it]. I was, like, ‘Thank you so much.’

“It’s special, because she’s been there for a while, and I said the first time only happens one time. It feels good also to know that we’re partners and she supports me as well.”

Townsend has been successful on the WTA Tour by being one of the few players to employ a serve-and-volley strategy like Hall of Fame great Martina Navratilova, also a lefty.

Looking back on what she endured to rise to No. 1 in doubles, Townsend opened her soul and cast light upon her journey, with nothing to hide.

“I have had to go through some of the hardest struggles and the most personal struggles in the public eye,” Townsend said during one of her honest and insightful news conferences during last week’s Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington, D.C. “Some really very kind of intimate topics that had to be a topic of conversation literally around the world as a child and having to defend myself as a kid.”

Unlike most junior girls, Townsend didn’t fit the stereotype of an elite player, one with a lean and sculpted appearance. Because of her physical stature, the U.S. Tennis Association barred her from competing in the Junior US Open, suggesting she had a weight problem, and sent her to its development center in Boca Raton, Fla., with the goal of improving her fitness. Ultimately, the USTA revoked its funding and support for Townsend. So, she turned to Kamau Murray, a longtime coach of Sloane Stephens in Chicago, and former pro Zina Garrison, a 1990 Wimbledon singles runner-up, who was also a three-time major mixed doubles champion and an Olympic medalist, in Washington, D.C., for training and guidance support.

“There hasn’t been anyone who has gone through what I went through since I went through it, so I think things have changed a little bit – which is great, right?” Townsend said. “When I was going through the whole body image thing, there was no body positivity movement. That didn’t exist.

“It was common to scrutinize body types and give a person a body archetype and what you should be and having to put people in this box. And now, throughout the years, it has evolved into shattering those boxes and basically people being able to accomplish whatever they want in their fields, however you look and whatever.”

Twelve years ago, at age 17, Townsend reached her first WTA Tour doubles final in Washington, D.C., teamed with Eugenie Bouchard of Canada, whom she won a junior Wimbledon title with. She was asked by reporter what advice she as a 29-year-old Grand Slam champion and the mother of a four-year-old son – now a World No. 1 and the first mom to achieve that ranking – would tell 17-year-old Taylor. 

“Whew, that’s load,” she said. “I think I would tell 17-year-old Taylor to just trust her gut. I would tell her just to listen to yourself and just sometimes your nos are just as powerful as your yeses.

“The times where you feel like you’re getting told no or things aren’t going the way you think or expecting is sometimes the best thing, because it’s preparing you for elevation in other places and spaces.

“I have had a lot of nos in my career, a lot of nos, and there will continue to be more. There’s a lot of people telling me you can’t do this or it’s not going to happen or you’re not going to be this or you can’t do that.

“If I would have listened, I don’t think I would even still have a racquet in my hand. I would just tell her to keep trusting your gut and your heart and just keep going. I’m most proud of myself, because this has been a dream, but there have been so many roadblocks that could have made me stop and I just refused to stop.

“But, yeah, I would just tell her to trust your gut. You’ve got this, and just keep going, because the road, even though it’s bumpy, is going to be worth it when you get to where you’re trying to go and where you have dreamed of being.”

After learning she had reached World No. 1 in doubles, Townsend intimated it’s the most satisfying journey she could ever have imagined. “Being able to attain the No. 1 after having my son and, you know, like, going through trials and tribulations and being able to even have the results of being a two-time Grand Slam champion, winning Masters 1000s, and accomplishing things that I had never accomplished before having my son [AJ], like I think that makes it the most amazing,” she said.

Townsend also gave props to the 36-year-old Zhang, ranked 12th, whom she spent a lot of time off the court getting to know better during their week together in Washington, D.C. “Being able to hug Shuai, and shouts out to her, because she has been asking me to play for a lot of years. She said, ‘Hey, I’m going to come here because I want you to be No. 1. … You’re No. 1 in my mind, and these three tournaments before US Open, these are for you. Whatever you need from me, this is for you.’

“It’s not often you find someone so selfless and so openly vocal about wanting you to be your best, because we are all competitors, right? People don’t really talk about that. Hey, this is for you.

“Tennis is a very selfish sport. It always has to be about me, me, me. So, I thanked her so much, just thank you for being here, because if it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have happened.

“I’m really, really excited. But yeah, I’m beaming inside.”

Looking ahead, with the start of the US Open less than a month away, Townsend admits gratification over what she has earned in becoming No. 1 in the world in doubles. “You know, no one can take that from me and no one can strip that from me,” she said.

“I don’t care if it lasts a day, a week, whatever. I’m just going to embrace it, enjoy it. I’m so proud of myself. I’m super excited to be here today and continue to play some really great tennis leading up the the US Open and, hopefully, play my best tennis when I get there.”

 

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