Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova were placed onto a smaller court midway through their doubles final at the Miami Open.
Townsend and Siniakova were bidding to complete the Sunshine Double in Miami, with just top seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini standing in their way.
However, midway through the women’s doubles final rain started to fall and the match was suspended.
During this rain delay, the Miami Open tournament decided to move Townsend’s doubles match on to a smaller court to make way for the men’s singles final between Jannik Sinner and Jiri Lehecka, and now she has reacted to the decision after winning the title.
Taylor Townsend claims she ‘didn’t really care’ about court change
Townsend and Siniakova were originally on Stadium Court before being moved down to Grandstand for the final of the tournament.
After they were able to return from the rain delay to beat Errani and Paolini 7-6(0), 6-1, Townsend admitted that she was a ‘little bit surprised’ by the decision, but certainly not fazed.
“I was a little bit surprised because that’s never happened in a final,” said Townsend, as reported by miamiopen.com.
“Honestly, I didn’t really care, I just wanted to finish. I wanted to play. It was nice the fans came out and the stands weren’t empty.
“I was just chilling [during the rain delay]. When [the tournament supervisor] said it was time to go, we went.
“I didn’t mind; a court is a court. That’s how I grew up. That’s how I was raised from the time I started playing. I played on courts with cracks and weeds up to here. As long as it has lines you can do whatever you can do.”
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Taylor Townsend explains what makes her Miami Open win ‘really special’
It is the first time that Townsend and Siniakova have completed the Sunshine Double in their respective careers.
Siniakova is an 11-time Grand Slam doubles champion, and so Townsend explained that it made it even more ‘special’ to be able to achieve history that neither player had done before.
“I’m just happy we’ve done something together, accomplished this as a team,’’ said Townsend. “That goes down in the history books like, ‘Taylor and Kat, Taylorina did the Sunshine Double.’
“It’s really special for me because it’s something Kat hasn’t done before. Finally, we’re making history together. Every time we do things, she’s won this, she’s won that. This is nice and is something new to me.
“It means a lot to me because I’ve never accomplished it before in my career and when we started we never talked about this.
“Just try to be better each match we step on the court. Today was a perfect indication of that. We weren’t playing our best; weren’t doing what we wanted to do in the first set, but after the rain delay we were able to come back and from start to finish play our game the way we wanted to.”
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Townsend and Siniakova are the sixth women’s doubles team to complete the Sunshine Double and first since Aryna Sabalenka and Elise Mertens did in 2019.
After winning back-to-back tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, Townsend and Siniakova are now up to third in the race to the WTA Finals.
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