After the 2021 birth of Townsend’s son, Adyn, she played doubles with Keys in the first Grand Slam of her comeback at Roland Garros the next year, and reached the semifinals. But it was Townsend who played a supportive role to Keys at a more recent Grand Slam last summer, when the latter injured herself in a Wimbledon match against Jasmine Paolini.
“When she hurt herself and had to pull out, and I saw her in the locker room, and I just hugged her. She cried on my shoulder, and I’m, like, It’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK,'” Townsend said. “It’s times in those moments where you don’t know what’s going to happen, and she thought she tore a hamstring, and it was just a lot of uncertainty. So for me, like, as a friend, I’m just so genuinely happy because you see people overcome certain things, and you see people go through things.
“To know that they put their head down and just work, and just you hope for the best. I just can’t even put into words how happy I am, and it inspired me. I look at Madison and all the things that she’s been through.”
