Taylor Townsend goes full Steph Curry in Cincinnati after qualifying win

CINCINNATI — After winning her second qualifying match of the weekend to secure a main-draw spot at the Cincinnati Open on Monday, Taylor Townsend celebrated the moment with what looked like a “night, night” homage to Steph Curry’s gold-medal-winning performance for the U.S. Men’s Basketball team at the Paris Olympics.

But given Townsend’s travel heroics to even get to Cincinnati, you had to wonder if she also just wanted a well-earned nap.

“No, it was definitely for the U.S. Basketball team,” Townsend said. “I want to be like him, that was fire — put ’em to sleep.”

Sleep is something Townsend got little of the night before her Cincinnati qualifying campaign. Last week, she came through qualifying at the National Bank Open and went on to make her first Hologic WTA Tour quarterfinal. The win set up an all-American quarterfinal against Emma Navarro, which Townsend lost in straight sets.

As she laid on the physio’s table after the match, she started looking into flights options to Cincinnati, where she was scheduled to play not before 5 p.m. the next day. None of the flight options would get her to the tournament in time.

“The earliest flight that we were going to be able to get was leaving Toronto at 6 a.m., connecting somewhere, and then we would have arrived to Cincinnati at like 1:45 p.m.,” Townsend said. “And then more than likely we would have had to come straight to site.

“And then on top of that, the travel time cumulatively for all of the flights that we looked at, the least amount of travel time with layovers was like 5.5 hours. The drive was seven and a half. It doesn’t really make any sense if, by the time you factor in having to get to the airport and doing all the things, is basically the same time, right?”

Townsend’s manager was able to secure a car and a driver and the team were on their way for an all-night drive across the border. They arrived at the hotel at 5 a.m., 12 hours before Townsend was set to take the court.

“It’s something that’s not really talked about a lot,” Townsend said. “So that’s why I was just like, y’all have to document this because this is insane.

“But it’s part of it, you know? And until I get my ranking up in a place where I’m in main draw, this is just the fight that I have to fight right now. So it’s like one of the things where it’s part of it, you got to go and of got to grind through.”

The 28-year-old can laugh about it all now that she cruised through her two matches to make the main draw. And, given her summer singles surge, this may have been the last time she’ll have to qualify for quite some time. Since winning her first Grand Slam doubles title at Wimbledon last month, Townsend has made the Round of 16 in Washington D.C. and the quarterfinals in Toronto. She’ll be knocking on the door of the Top 50 and a new career-high when the rankings are run on Tuesday.

“These are the moments and these are the times that I train for and that I work for,” Townsend said, “and this is the type of tennis that I’ve been training to play. This isn’t anything like I feel like I’m treeing or outside of myself or outside of anything that I can’t continue to replicate. If anything, I feel like I can get better and continue to refine the way that I’m playing.

“So I feel great. And Toronto was fantastic because it allowed me to be able to know that I can play, compete and beat top players convincingly, knowing that how I’m playing and what I’m doing is enough.”