The local duo of Alycia Parks and Taylor Townsend were the champions of the 2023 WTA Cincinnati Open, and the first one commented on the moment.
American women's tennis had the best news of the week. In the singles main draw, Coco Gauff became the champion in Cincinnati by defeating Karolina Muchova 6-3, 6-4.
Furthermore, in the doubles final, the local pair of Alycia Parks and Taylor Townsend faced the Australian duo Ellen Perez and the American Nicole Melichar. This ensured that at least one of the local players would take home the trophy.
The 27-year-old tennis player Townsend expressed her gratitude to the event organizers and reminisced about her younger years attending the tournament:
“Thank you to Western and Southern. This is such an amazing event, you know, being from Chicago and this being one of the tournaments that I went to when I was younger. So it's a very full circle moment for me,” Townsend said.
“Thank you to all the fans for watching us and supporting us. It has been a very long day of tennis but hey, you got your money's worth,” she added, with a laugh.
The last time a local duo had won the women's title was in 2014 with Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears. Since then, no American pair had managed to secure the Cincinnati title.
On their path to the title, Townsend and Parks faced four of the top five seeded pairs. First in the round of 16 against Jelena Ostapenko and Liudmila Kichenok (5th seeds), then against Desire Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs (4th seeds), followed by Storm Sanders and Elise Mertens (second seeds), and finally, Nicole Melichar with Ellen Perez (third seeds).
This week, the American Townsend will be playing in the WTA 250 Chicago Open thanks to a wild card from the organizers, while Alycia Parks will take a break to prepare for the US Open, which starts on August 28th.
Taylor Townsend and Alycia Parks teamed up to play doubles together for the first time and they've been crowned champions in Cincinnati! The Americans beat four of the Top five seeded teams consecutively on the way to the title. What a run! #CincyTennis
