Back in March, Taylor Townsend was crying in a locker room at Indian Wells. It was the day of the BNP Paribas Open doubles final, and also her son’s fifth birthday, a party she was going to miss. She told her partner, Katerina Siniakova, she needed a hug, and Siniakova’s reply, as Townsend later recalled, was “we do this for AJ.” Eight months later, Townsend is back in Indian Wells for the WTA Finals, and motherhood is part of her match-day routine again.

So she was not thinking about serves or returns just a few hours before one of her biggest matches of the week. She was with her son, going through his morning routine- asthma treatment and all- in a hotel room at Indian Wells. 

“Hotel baseball, asthma treatments, and Tom and Jerry to start the morning,” Townsend wrote in an Instagram story. The photo showed her lying on a hotel bed next to her five-year-old son, Adyn, throwing up a peace sign for the camera while he rested beside her. And there was no mention of the tennis waiting for her later that day. Moreover, it was not the only update from her hotel room to come this week.

Earlier, she had posted a clip of AJ asleep in bed with a fever while she went out to buy over-the-counter medicine to bring it down. He had been in the stands for her opening match, the Sunday loss to Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani, before he got sick. She was caring for him and training, and hoping not to catch it herself, with plenty of tennis left to play.

Yesterday, in another story, she also shared her speech from the Paribas final, after the pair went out and beat Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic. Back then, Townsend dedicated the title to Adyn. But earlier in the day, she had been overwhelmed thinking about the fifth anniversary of his birth. In her speech, she said she would try to get through it without crying, admitted she had teared up about four times already just looking at photos while realizing it was “the day my life changed,” and called it a sacrifice to be there.

She spoke to him before the final and rang again straight after, finding him in the thick of his party, “amped up on cake.” She joked she was glad to be spared a hyper five-year-old on a sugar high, and said the trophy she could now show him over the phone made missing it worth it. Her family made sure he saw her shout him out in real time and sent her that moment, which she called super special.

Now, the American doubles star is again partnering with Siniakova for the WTA Finals at Indian Wells. And AJ is with her this time around, making memories with his mother in the desert. The BNP Paribas Open’s official Instagram account shared pictures of Adyn walking the green with Townsend and high-fiving aunt Siniakova, writing, “She’s not like a regular mom, she’s a cool mom”.

Townsend gave birth to Adyn in March 2021 and returned to the tour the following year. What followed was the best run of her career. Motherhood didn’t slow her down, but it sharpened her sense of purpose, and she has spoken several times about how hard it is to be away from her son while she travels the world.

The 30-year-old is a single mother who competes in both singles and doubles. And Townsend’s family is a huge support to her in raising Adyn. Her parents and sister take care of him when she is away, and it is not possible for her to take him with her. A caretaker also helps look after him, which she mentioned in a March 2025 interview. She has mentioned his dad only in passing. In early 2025, with AJ sick and at the doctor while she was in Dubai, she sent him a video of the trophy she had just won, and she said his dad showed it to him.

Still, she prefers that AJ stays home most of the time, as she explained in a March 2025 interview with Town & Country: the long flights, time changes, living out of a suitcase, and eating out every night are not the life she wants for him at this age, and young children do better with a routine, which tennis rarely offers. He was supposed to join her at that year’s Indian Wells, but he and his caretaker both got sick, and she did not want them flying and changing climates when they were not fully well. Leaving him was hard. She told him, “Adyn, I’m so sad. I don’t want to leave you yet.” He took it in stride and said they would just go to Florida together instead.

When AJ does make it to a tournament, the moments stick. She hugged him after reaching her first WTA singles semifinal in February this year, a run that carried her to her first tour-level singles final in Austin, where she spoke openly about doing things her way. In March 2024, she hugged him after reaching the third round in Miami for the first time in seven years. He has been courtside at some of her U.S. matches, though only occasionally.

Townsend and Siniakova fight to qualify for the semifinals at the WTA Finals

Second seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend advanced to the semifinals of the FAGE WTA Finals on Thursday. They join Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, who won all three of their Group 2 round-robin matches to finish unbeaten.

The Czech-American pair clinched the group’s second semifinal place against Cristina Bucsa and Nicole Melichar-Martinez. They won the first set 6-2 and were up 4-2 in the second when Melichar-Martinez had to retire with an injury. The result left Siniakova and Townsend second in Group 2 with a 2-1 record. This is the third time in as many WTA Finals appearances as a duo that they have made the last four. They finished as runners-up in 2024 and lost in the semifinals in 2025, and they will now chase their first team title at the event.

It was that match Townsend had been preparing for when she posted from her hotel room, and the reward is another shot at the one WTA Finals title that has eluded her. She and Siniakova will now face the winner of the other group in the semifinals. That left them waiting on Friday’s results, with top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani the likely opponents after leading their group.