I cannot say enough about Taylor Townsend. Her resolve. Her spirit. Her undeniable talent on the tennis court.
And let me add class to the list of attributes this proud Black tennis professional has exhibited throughout her 14-year career on the Women’s Tennis Association tour.
It is a career marked by controversy at the start and interrupted by maternity as she was starting to hit her stride as a pro.
But now, five years after giving birth to her son Adyn Aubrey, Taylor is just weeks away from a crowning finish to what already has become her best season ever when she and Czech partner Katerina Siniakova compete for the year-end doubles title at the WTA Finals in Indian Wells.
Taylor and Siniakova are currently the top-ranked doubles team in the world and likely will lead the field of eight teams vying for the championship. If they win the title that eluded them in 2024, they will finish the season as No. 1.
A month ago, the duo won the US Open title to complete the Grand Slam of tennis, meaning they have won all four major doubles titles – the Wimbledon Championships (2024), the Australian Open (2025), the French Open and US Open (2026).
In completing the career Grand Slam, Taylor entered an elite category of players and may have put herself on a path to tennis immortality at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI.
Only four other American women have won all four major doubles titles with the same partner — the incomparable twosome of Pam Shriver and Martina Navratilova, who won a record eight consecutive majors; and the indomitable sister act of Serena and Venus Williams, who went undefeated in 14 major finals.
American Lisa Raymond also won a doubles Grand Slam, albeit with two different partners.
Shriver and Navratilova are Hall of Famers. The Williams sisters undoubtedly will be voted in, whenever they decide to retire, joining Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe as the only Blacks to receive the highest honor in tennis.
Even with the career doubles Grand Slam on her record, Taylor would face huge odds, as the Hall of Fame selection process has not been favorable to doubles players.
Consider the case of Lisa Raymond, who won 79 doubles titles, was ranked No. 1 for 137 weeks and holds the record for match wins at 860 over a 20-year career. She also won four singles titles and was ranked as high as 15 in singles.
Yet, Raymond failed to make the cut in three consecutive years of IHOF voting (2021-2023).
At 30, Taylor probably has a few more years to build upon what already is an amazing career. She has 17 doubles titles so far and reached the No. 1 ranking in July of last year. She is the first mother to be ranked No. 1 in doubles.
Taylor is 39-4 in doubles this year with six titles. In addition to the two majors, she and Siniakova won three consecutive WTA 1000 tournaments, including the Sunshine Double at Indian Wells and Miami. She is currently ranked No. 2 behind Siniakova.
A title at the WTA Finals title would be a fantastic end to the 2026 season and lift Taylor to an even loftier niche.
The WTA’s player list for this year’s season ending finale describes Taylor as “a versatile player excelling in both singles and doubles.”
While Taylor has yet to win a tour-level singles title, she has compiled a 329-202 record, winning 62 percent of her matches. She is ranked inside the top 100 and reached a career high ranking of 46 in August 2024.
At this year’s US Open, Taylor reached the fourth round in singles for the second consecutive year and third time in her career. She knocked off the No. 20 and No. 15 ranked players before losing to then World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
Taylor has excelled at every level of tennis. In 2018, she was voted the Most Valuable Player in World Team Tennis while playing with the Philadelphia Freedoms.
The Chicago-born lefty’s junior career was outstanding, though it ended on a sour note with the United States Tennis Association.
In 2012, Taylor won the girls Australian Open singles and doubles titles and the doubles championship at Wimbledon. She also won the prestigious Easter Bowl in singles.
But that apparently wasn’t good enough for USTA officials, who denied Taylor a wild card spot in the main draw at the US Open and initially declined to pay her expenses to compete in juniors. They claimed she wasn’t fit enough.
Taylor came up with the funding to get to New York and ended up winning the girls doubles championship, which helped her end the year as the top-ranked junior in the world, the first American girl to do so in four decades. She turned pro at the end of the season and severed ties with the USTA.
So, understandably, winning the US Open women’s doubles title last month was somewhat of a full-circle moment for Taylor, and she let the audience know what it meant to her after receiving the trophy.
“To be able to play on Arthur Ashe, and to hold this trophy, it’s something that’s so special to me, because I don’t forget the things that I’ve gone through,” she told the crowd during the trophy ceremony. “If flipping the script had a face…, it would be my face.”
But I was more impressed by her reflection on how special it was to be a part of something historic happening at this tournament.
“I take a lot of pride in this, being a black woman here,” she said. “There are two Black women in the finals, two Black men in the semifinals. This is a phenomenal time for tennis, for inspiration, for representation.”
Taylor was referring to Robin Montgomery, one of her two opponents in the final, and Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, who would later play in the first ever major semifinal match between two Black men.
Then, Taylor paid homage to former WTA No. 6 Chanda Rubin, now a Tennis Channel analyst and commentator, who was on the sidelines.
“It means a lot for you to be standing here, because you paved the way for us.” she said. “So, thank you.”
It may be premature to begin talking about whether Taylor Townsend deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. A player must be retired for five years to be eligible.
Should Taylor’s name come up for consideration, I hope fans and the governing body who cast a vote will be influenced as much by her personal story as her accomplishments on the tennis court.
It is a tale of perseverance that is captured in detail in a biography published last August, entitled “Taylor Townsend: Game, Set, Resilience: The Untold Story of Taylor Townsend’s Inspirational Tennis Journey…”
The overview describes the book as “an inspiring story of grit, self-belief, and triumph against the odds.”
The final chapter of Taylor’s journey has yet to be completed. Whether it includes a Hall of Fame nomination remains to be seen. But Taylor Townsend already has won my vote.
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