‘I felt like I belonged’: Townsend takes stock after falling to Sabalenka
NEW YORK -- Taylor Townsend had just lost in straight sets to the No. 1 player in the world, but a little more than an hour after the match ended Sunday afternoon, she came to the interview room upbeat, clear about what she had liked and what she would take from it.
There was a practical accounting of the match, of course. Aryna Sabalenka’s serve had bailed her out in big moments. Townsend had been up 3-1 in the second set and did not make it hold. She and her coach looked at the numbers afterward and figured that 10 or 12 points, turned the other way, might have made for a different outcome.
But Townsend has been around long enough to know when a loss is just a loss -- and when it says something more.
“This was the most comfortable and confident I’ve ever been playing against a No. 1 player in the world,” Townsend said after Sabalenka’s 6-4, 6-3 win in the US Open fourth round. “From the beginning I felt like I belonged. From the beginning I felt like I was right where I needed to be. I still feel that way.”
Townsend has spent half her life in the public eye. On Sunday, she talked about the distance from the teenager in bows and braces to the 30-year-old mother she is now -- still improving, and more comfortable than ever letting people see who she is.
Before the match, she arrived on Arthur Ashe Stadium wearing a feathered jacket over a rhinestone-accented dress. The jacket was light, she explained, built to move with the breeze. When it came off, there was the look she had been waiting to reveal.
“It’s like I have my armor underneath this jacket,” Townsend said. “Boom, I’m ready for war, I’m ready to go.”
The look fit the moment. This US Open, Townsend has played with her usual variety, made a memorable entrance and handled her biggest singles match of the tournament with the same candor afterward.
Against Sabalenka, the margins were narrow but unforgiving. The first four games were breaks of serve, Townsend erased part of a 5-2 first-set deficit and later led 3-1 in the second. Sabalenka answered each push, as champions tend to do, but Townsend did not leave wondering whether she could compete there.
“I felt like I had everything that I needed to compete with her,” Townsend said. “When you look at the stats and you’re right there, it just really motivates me to say, ‘OK, I’m there.’”
Sabalenka, seeking a third straight US Open title, was good enough to make Townsend applaud from across the net at times.
“That’s what happens when you are playing the best players in the world,” Townsend said. “Too good.”
Townsend is not finished in New York. She remains in the doubles draw, and a tournament referee told her coach she was the only player still competing in both singles and doubles.
“For me, I wear that very proudly,” Townsend said. “My tournament isn’t over yet."
