Taylor Townsend produced one of the finest performances of her career to defeat No 5 seed Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-2 on Arthur Ashe Stadium, reaching the fourth round at the US Open for the first time since 2019. The 29-year-old American, ranked outside the top 100 in singles but world No 1 in doubles, won four of five games to take the opening set after a nervy start, then won the last six games in a row to close out the match in 76 minutes.
Townsend, a former world No 1 junior from Georgia who reinvented herself as a doubles star, struck 23 winners to Andreeva’s six and won 21 of 29 points at the net. It was her third career win over a top-10 opponent, following victories over Simona Halep at the 2019 US Open and Jessica Pegula in Rome last year. 'God damn, this feels so good,' she said afterwards. 'Welcome to the show.'
The victory came two days after Townsend revealed that her second-round opponent Jelena Ostapenko had told her she had 'no class' and 'no education', comments that prompted accusations of racism. Ostapenko justified the remarks as a reaction to Townsend not apologising for a shot that clipped the net cord. Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka were among those who publicly defended Townsend, with Osaka calling the alleged comment 'one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority-white sport'.
Townsend said handling the fallout was straightforward. 'It hasn’t been hard at all,' she said. 'I said to my team, I’m made for this type of stuff. It wasn’t hard, because I stood in my truth. I didn’t have to defend anything that I said. What I said, I said, and I meant.' She added: 'When it’s time to do the job, it’s time to do the job. And that’s what I think is a testament to being professional, being able to block out what’s on the outside and when you step in the lines you handle business.'
The controversy also tapped into a deeper history. In 2012 the USTA asked Townsend, then 16 and the world’s top junior, to sit out the US Open girls’ event and denied her wild cards into the main draw or qualifying because of concerns over her fitness. The move, condemned by Serena Williams, Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport, forced her mother to pay her way and ultimately led Townsend to leave the federation’s program to work with Zina Garrison. Townsend said the night felt worlds away from her breakthrough win over Halep six years earlier on the same stage. 'In 2019 I felt like I was climbing and trying to get over the hump ... it helped validate me as a player,' she said. 'This time it just feels completely different. I wasn’t searching for anything, I wasn’t looking, trying to find answers. I had all the answers in here.'
For Andreeva, an 18-year-old Russian who reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon this year and won WTA 1000 titles at Dubai and Indian Wells in 2025, the defeat ended a run of reaching the second week at each of the first three majors of the season. Townsend will next face unseeded Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who upset 10th seed Emma Navarro earlier on Friday, for a place in the quarter-finals.
