Taylor Townsend and partner Katerina Siniakova defeated wild card pair Ashlyn Krueger and Robin Montgomery 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 in the US Open women’s doubles final on September 11, 2026, at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The win completes the pair’s career Grand Slam as a team, adding the US Open title to championships they already held at Wimbledon in 2024, the Australian Open in 2025 and the French Open earlier this year.
How close did this match actually get
Closer than the final score suggests at the start. Townsend and Siniakova dropped the opening set after losing the first three games, an uncharacteristic stumble for the tournament’s top seeds, including one uncharacteristic moment where a routine ball fell untouched between them. They regrouped in the second set, winning 23 of 27 points to force a decider, then carried that momentum through the third set for the win. Both players said afterward that nerves played a real role early in the match given how much the title meant to them.
Why does this title matter so much for Townsend specifically
Because her path to it was anything but smooth. Townsend won the US Open junior doubles title at 16 in 2012, the same tournament where her mother publicly revealed the USTA had pulled her funding, forcing the family to crowdsource money just to get her to New York.
Not long after, Pat McEnroe, then the USTA’s player development chief, effectively deemed her physically unfit for federation support, a decision that helped send her singles ranking tumbling from 94th in the world to 304th as she scraped by on tour largely without sponsorship backing. She fought back into the top 100 by 2017, reached the fourth round of the US Open in 2019 with a win over a top 10 player, and used becoming a mother in 2021 as motivation rather than a setback, eventually returning to the tour in the best shape of her career.
What has this partnership with Siniakova accomplished
A great deal. Siniakova, a Czech player who already completed a career Golden Slam with former partner Barbora Krejcikova, picked up her 12th Grand Slam doubles title and 38th career WTA title with this win, while extending a resume that includes six season ending world number one finishes, tying Martina Navratilova’s record in WTA history. The Townsend and Siniakova partnership itself began, by Townsend’s own account, through a direct message on Instagram rather than any formal introduction.
What did Townsend say after the win
Townsend told reporters the victory meant everything to her, both for winning the US Open specifically and for completing a career Slam alongside a partner she credited with helping her push through the difficult moments. In a separate message to her fans through Rolling Out, she thanked her longtime supporters directly and reflected on how the past year, including a viral moment during a win over Jelena Ostapenko that happened to fall on HBCU Day, had helped her lean further into showing her full personality on tour rather than following a more conventional path.
Did Townsend say anything about representation at the trophy ceremony
Yes, and it drew mixed reactions. Townsend told the Ashe crowd she felt pride watching Black American players make deep runs throughout this US Open, name-checking Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton and Coco Gauff alongside her own run with Montgomery, a doubles wild card partner. Some coverage embraced the moment as a meaningful reflection on a historic tournament for Black American tennis, while at least one commentary piece criticized her for bringing race into a victory speech. The split reaction reflects broader, ongoing political disagreement over how athletes should discuss race and representation publicly, rather than any dispute over what Townsend actually said.
What is next for Krueger and Montgomery
Despite the loss, both wild card entrants had a breakout tournament. Ranked 570th and 610th in doubles respectively entering the event, they knocked out both halves of defending champions Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski separately across the quarterfinals and semifinals before reaching the final, five years after the pair won the US Open girls’ doubles title together as juniors.
