US Open Champion Taylor Townsend Opens Up About ‘Getting Stabbed in My Stomach’ Pain Days After Emergency Surgery
Taylor Townsend was last seen in action in the first round of the Guadalajara Open.
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Taylor Townsend (Image via The New York Times)
About a couple of weeks ago, Taylor Townsend was in Guadalajara for the WTA 500 event. She overcame Tatjana Maria in three sets in the first round and scheduled her next match against Marta Kostyuk.
But she ended up withdrawing from the tournament, and it then came to light that she was hospitalized for emergency surgery. Townsend sat for an interview with Good Morning America, where she finally revealed what exactly happened to her.
It was really scary. I was supposed to be playing at 5 o’clock last Wednesday, and I woke up at 2:30 in the morning feeling like I was getting stabbed in my stomach. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought I had food poisoning or something. I was feeling so terrible, and the physio came and then did an appendix test and said, ‘I don’t like that.’ Then the doctor came to my room. He did something, and he was like, ‘Oh I don’t like that. You need to go to the hospital.’
After the ultrasound, she was told that she had appendicitis and needed emergency surgery.
They do the ultrasound, and it comes back that I have appendicitis and my appendix was inflamed. They were like, ‘We have to do emergency surgery. You need to do the surgery.’ And I’m there by myself, and I call my team, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do this! Someone just please get me home!’ I was just thinking about my son and everything. So it was just really scary.
Taylor Townsend added
Before arriving in the Mexican city, Townsend completed the Career Grand Slam in doubles. She and partner Katerina Siniakova defeated the pair of Ashlyn Krueger and Robin Montgomery in the final of the US Open.
It was also Townsend and Siniakova’s second Grand Slam title of the season following the French Open, where they defeated Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic in the final. Townsend won all four of her doubles Grand Slam titles with Siniakova.
US Open doubles champion Taylor Townsend says an emergency appendectomy was her reason for pulling out of the GDL Open in Mexico just days after her Grand Slam win. pic.twitter.com/TX3wcMUmKH
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 26, 2026
Taylor Townsend on her relationship with Serena Williams
Taylor Townsend, during her interview with Elle, talked about how her relationship with Serena Williams changed after giving birth to her son, Adyn, in 2021. When Williams, before her first retirement at the 2022 US Open, was still playing, she refrained from developing close relationships with her fellow WTA players.
She was like, like, not talking to anybody. ‘Like it was no talks in the locker room. If you play tennis, we ain’t talking to you.’ You know what I’m saying. Like it was literally like that. But you know, once she became a mom, I actually went to her house when I was pregnant, and she put together one of my, like, a registry for me and told me all of these things. ‘Get this and this and this.’
In the mid-2026 season, Williams reversed her retirement decision and made her comeback at the Queen’s Club Championships, where she competed in doubles alongside Victoria Mboko. After playing doubles at the Berlin Open with Wimbledon runner-up Karolina Muchova, Williams finally returned to singles after being awarded the wild card at Wimbledon.
She couldn’t compete in doubles at SW19, which she was set to play with her sister Venus Williams, due to a niggle. The Williams sisters played their first match in Cincinnati and lost in the first round. They next lost in the first round of the US Open. It was also the last time they were seen in action.
But it’s uncertain whether Townsend will play more this season. This season, she has played six doubles finals, winning all.
Gouri Das
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