Three years prior, American Peyton Stearns secured her inaugural WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz main-draw victory at the ATX Open – her adopted hometown event following a successful collegiate tennis career at the nearby University of Texas – and advanced to the quarterfinals. Ever since, Stearns had often expressed her wish for a fellow Longhorn to claim the tournament’s top prize.
Austin: Scores | Draws | Order of play
The 2022 NCAA champion fulfilled that aspiration on Sunday, triumphing 7-6(8), 7-5 against compatriot Taylor Townsend in a hard-fought 2-hour, 22-minute battle that earned Stearns her second career tour-level singles championship.
Stearns, currently ranked 53rd, entered the competition having exited in the first round in the previous two years. Her week began with a lost opening set to Francesca Jones, making an unfortunate third consecutive early exit seem plausible. However, she mounted a comeback to win that match and then secured two more victories in three sets during the subsequent rounds, propelling her into her first tour-level singles final in nearly two years, and her first ever on hard courts. Her most recent final appearance was in May 2024, when she clinched the clay-court WTA 250 title in Rabat, Morocco.
Facing Townsend, Stearns found herself trailing once more, having been defeated in their sole previous encounter. The left-handed Townsend, participating in her maiden WTA singles final, maintained the lead for much of the first set, holding two set points on Stearns’ serve at 5-3. Yet, the 24-year-old Stearns successfully fended off both, and then another in the tiebreak, before finally converting her fifth opportunity to take the set.
In the second set, it was Townsend who repeatedly erased deficits, recovering from a break down on two occasions and coming within two points of forcing a decisive third set. Nevertheless, Stearns showcased resilience, holding serve for 5-5 after being pushed to deuce from a 40-0 advantage – a pivotal game that initiated a sequence of three straight games for Stearns, ultimately sealing the match.
This championship match marked the second consecutive all-American final in Austin, following Jessica Pegula’s victory over McCartney Kessler for the 2025 crown.
Hours later, however, Townsend ensured she wouldn’t depart Austin empty-handed: teaming with Storm Hunter as the top-seeded doubles pair, they claimed that title with a 6-3, 6-4 win against the No. 3 seeds, Eudice Chong and Liang En-shuo.