Taylor Townsend enjoyed a life-changing US Open run, reaching the second week of the singles event and finishing runner-up in doubles alongside Katerina Siniakova. The world No. 1 doubles star silenced the noise after a run-in with former Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko, who told Townsend that she had “no class” and “no education” after their second-round clash.
It’s been a long road to success for Townsend, who was once body-shamed by the USTA as a junior, and then took a brief break from tennis to welcome her first child, a son named Adyn Aubrey, in 2021. And the American tennis star has now revealed that Serena Williams became a supportive figure during her pregnancy, even though they aren’t friends.
Williams, who was famously a few weeks pregnant with her first child when she won the 2017 Australian Open, stepped in to help Townsend when she was expecting her first child, even helping her buy the essentials.
The two-time doubles Grand Slam champion told The Pivot Podcast: “I got the closest with Serena when I was pregnant.
“I went over to her house and she put a whole Amazon list together for me of all the things that I needed to get for the baby, and like those times were, that was the most conversation I had ever had with her.”
But Townsend, who faced Williams on the singles and doubles court throughout her career, says the reality of being competitors meant they could never truly be friends.
“It’s honestly surreal for me. It was really cool, especially being able to experience that here. Venus and Serena, you know, I’ve looked up to them for years,” she explained.
“But even for so many years on tour, it was never like a friendship. It was, ‘I’m out here and you’re another piece of competition. If I got to take you, I gotta take you out’.”
“There’s an aura where it’s like, when we in this arena, we ain’t friends with buddies, and it’s no faking the funk, you know what I’m saying.”
Townsend has also faced Venus Williams twice in the last few weeks. The 45-year-old made a winning return to competition in Washington back in July, reaching the second round in both singles and doubles.
Venus partnered with Hailey Baptiste in doubles, and they lost to eventual champions Townsend and Zhang Shuai. Then, at the recent US Open, No. 1 seeds Townsend and Katerina Siniakova beat Venus and Leylah Fernandez in the quarter-finals.
The elder Williams sister also publicly voiced her support for Townsend in the wake of her match against Ostapenko. “My thoughts about it? It was a lot of drama. It was a lot of drama. I thought Taylor handled it amazing. I really did,” she said.
“I just thought with her as a mum, how she handled it, her son will be watching. Her son is watching. She handled it with class, a situation that was not so classy. Just moved on and won again.
“So she’s handling it amazing. I’m rooting for her. She’s a wonderful person, a great mum. I hope she can keep going.”
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