Barbora Krejcikova, Katerina Siniakova complete Career Golden Slam in doubles at US Open

Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova fought back from the brink of defeat to make history at the US Open on Sunday, defeating American duo Caty McNally and Taylor Townsend, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1, to complete a Career Golden Slam in doubles—which means winning all four Grand Slams plus the Olympics in their career.

They won Roland Garros and Wimbledon for the first time in 2018, captured the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo last year, and their first Australian Open earlier this year—so conquering the US Open was the final piece of the puzzle.

They’re the second women’s doubles team ever to complete a Career Golden Slam, after the Williams sisters, and the fifth and sixth individual women’s players ever to complete one, after Pam Shriver, Gigi Fernandez and the Williams sisters.

“Well, I think it’s a really special feeling that we are part of the history right now,” Krejcikova said. “But, I mean, then also on the other hand, it’s such an amazing achievement, but then the career is still going on and we still want to add some more. We still want to keep improving and keep getting better.

“I hope this is not the end. I hope we’re going to add many, many more next to our names. But right now in this situation, in the moment that we are here, it’s just amazing, amazing achievement, amazing feeling to be part of the history.”

McNally and Townsend very nearly stopped history, though—they stormed out to a 6-3, 4-1 lead, and were even a game away leading 6-3, 5-4 with Krejcikova serving to stay in the match. But the Czechs held at love and ended up winning 9 of the last 10 games for a come-from-behind victory on Arthur Ashe Stadium.

“I felt like we were just down for a very long time. But I felt we were still in the game and we tried to fight for every single ball,” Krejcikova said. “Suddenly the game just started to go on our side. I mean, we felt really, really good with that. I felt as we took the second set, I think from there on we started to be a better team.

“I’m really, really happy that we won this final Slam for us that we were missing. I mean, it sounds amazing that we achieved such amazing things.”

The Czechs finish the season with an 18-0 record in Majors, going 6-0 to win the Australian Open, 6-0 to win Wimbledon and 6-0 to win the US Open (they couldn’t play Roland Garros after Krejcikova had to withdraw due to a positive COVID test).

Krecjikova now has a total of 10 career Grand Slam titles across all disciplines—in addition to her six women’s doubles titles with Siniakova, she also has three in mixed doubles (at the 2019 Australian Open with Rajeev Ram, the 2020 Australian Open with Nikola Mektic and the 2021 Australian Open, again with Ram) and, perhaps most famously, one Grand Slam title in singles at Roland Garros in 2021.