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.
