WHAT HAPPENED: It took less than five years for the Czech team of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova to amass a Hall of Fame-worthy résumé, but there was one bit of hardware that had eluded the pairing through their remarkable run: a championship in the Big Apple.
Today, that box has officially been checked off, and in stunning fashion to boot.
Krejcikova and Siniakova came back from from a set and a break down against the all-American pair of Caty McNally and Taylor Townsend, winning 12 of the final 14 games in posting a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win in the 2022 US Open women’s doubles final in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The Czech pair, who ended last season as the No. 1 team in the world after winning the WTA Finals in Guadalajara, have now completed the career Golden Slam and their sixth Grand Slam title as a duo. The team won the gold medal in doubles at the Tokyo Olympics held last summer.
The two Czechs have been playing doubles together since juniors, and they won their first Grand Slam as a pair on the professional level at Roland Garros in 2018. Their experience together came to the fore after they found themselves on the verge of being run out of Ashe at 3-6, 1-4 down.
“We calmed down a little, and I said it’s not going to be [our day] this time,” Siniakova said when describing her thoughts at that point of the match. “We just showed better tennis after that. We just tried to keep fighting and play every point, and I’m surprised that we did it.
“This journey is so long and I’m so happy we keep going,” Siniakova continued. “We’re trying to improve and I appreciate it that we’re still playing together and that things are going well.”
WHAT IT MEANS: In Grand Slam play during 2022, Krejcikova and Siniakova were a perfect 18-0, winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon and, now, the US Open. Krejcikova was unable to participate in doubles at Roland Garros after testing positive for COVID-19 and having to withdraw before she and Siniakova were to play in their first-round match.
“I don’t know how this is happening,” Krejcikova said about the pair’s immaculate run in majors this year. “I found the season really difficult, especially this match. It was really hard for us, and the level was pretty high from both sides. At the end, I was just trying to fight and it’s amazing that we won another Slam and that our team is doing great, great stuff.”
On the other side of the net, McNally has now reached the US Open final in back-to-back years, making the 2021 final with another American, Coco Gauff. McNally, alongside Gauff, also split the first two sets in last year’s final before losing the third to the team of Samantha Stosur and Shuai Zhang.
MATCH POINT: In their first WTA Tour event competing as a doubles team, McNally and Townsend went down in defeat in their first match together in Cincinnati. In their second event as a pairing, McNally and Townsend became Grand Slam finalists.
That was quick!
And not bad for Townsend, who gave birth to her first child, a boy named Adyn, in March of 2021.
“This has been such an amazing journey. This one hurts, but this isn’t the last time I’m going to be out here [in the final],” Townsend said in her interview.
“Watch out for 2023,” Townsend said in closing her on-court speech.
McNally and Townsend were attempting to become the first all-American pair to win the women’s doubles title at the US Open since Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond did so back in 2011. Only one other all-American duo besides Huber and Raymond has won the women’s doubles title in Flushing Meadows since the turn of the century: Serena Williams and Venus Williams, back in 2009.
