Wimbledon 2024: Taylor Townsend wins first Grand Slam title with women's doubles crown
After twice falling just short in Grand Slam finals, Taylor Townsend would not be denied in the Wimbledon women's doubles title match on Saturday. Playing alongside Czech star Katerina Siniakova in London, Townsend earned her first major title in any professional discipline.
The fourth seeds beat second seeds Gabriel Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe, 7-6(5), 7-6(1), in the final after knocking off top seeds Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, in the semis. Hsieh had won the last three Wimbledons she participated in, and hadn't lost a Wimbledon doubles match since 2018.
"I feel great," the 28-year-old Townsend said post-match. "I got 500 text messages. I didn't know that many people had my number. That's going to take a while to go through.
"This is my first one, my first Grand Slam title. I've been close two other times. To get over the finish line the way that we did, I think we played so well. We were just locked in, in control. We played our way. It felt good the way we did it."
Townsend also won the opening set of both of her previous major finals—with Caty McNally at the 2022 US Open and with Leylah Fernandez at Roland Garros in 2023. But after saving two set points in the opening set on Saturday, she and Siniakova made the lead count. All three final appearances came after the birth of her son, Adyn Aubrey, in 2021.
Townsend's win marks the second straight Slam won by an American with Siniakova after Coco Gauff teamed with her to win Roland Garros.
- Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova pose with their 2024 Wimbledon women's doubles trophies. Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images.
- Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images.
- Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.
Wimbledon was just the third event Townsend and Siniakova played together, after a quarterfinal run this year in Rome and a first-round exit in Bad Homburg. Long before they teamed up, both players dominated the junior doubles Grand Slams. In 2012, Townsend won three junior doubles Slams (Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open) in addition to her AO junior singles title. Siniakova won three straight junior doubles majors in 2013, claiming titles at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open.
The Czech, a former doubles world No. 1, is now a nine-time Grand Slam doubles champ at the professional level. She moved up three places to doubles world No. 2 behind this Wimbledon run, while Townsend soared 17 places to No. 7—two places off her career high from 2023.
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