Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and partner Erin Routliffe won the U.S. Open women’s doubles final 7-6(9), 6-3 over the tandem of Germany’s Laura Siegemund and Russia’s Vera Zvonareva , Sunday afternoon in New York.
For Dabrowski, a 31-year-old from Ottawa, this is her first women’s doubles title at a Grand Slam tournament, in her second final.
In 2019, Dabrowski and Chinese Xu Yifan lost the final match of the Wimbledon Open against the duo of Taiwanese Hsieh Su-wei and Czech Barbora Strycova.
Dabrowski is the first Canadian champion at a major tournament since 2019, when Bianca Andreescu was the queen of Flushing Meadows.
In regular doubles, the last case of a country athlete winning the final was Wimbledon in 2014, when British Columbian Vasek Pospisil and American Jack Sock won.
The triumph adds to the two titles Dabrowski has won in mixed doubles at Grand Slam tournaments.
In 2017, at the French Open, Dabrowski teamed up with Indian Rohan Bopanna to defeat Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Robert Farah.
The following year, Dabrowski and Croatian Mate Pavic won the Australian Open mixed doubles match against Timea Babos and Bopanna.
On Sunday at the Arthur Ashe Stadium and ahead of the men’s singles final between Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev, Dabrowski and Routliffe earned 75 percent of the points after slotting their first service ball into play, a rate of significantly higher than their opponents, which was only 56 per cent.
Elsewhere, Dabrowski and Routliffe converted three of their seven break chances. These breaks were all made in the second set, including in what would prove to be the final game of the match.
“Gabriela really took a chance on me. I really like her and I really like her for giving me this opportunity,” Routliffe said. I hope we will have many more great results like this. »
Dabrowski returned the compliment.
“You took a chance with me too,” she said. It’s been a difficult year for all of us. I am very, very proud of how we have stuck together these last two weeks, no matter what happened. »
Dabrowski and Routliffe only faltered once in their serve, although they conceded nine break chances to their opponents. Five of those break opportunities came in the opening set, but Dabrowski and Routliffe fended them all off.
Intractable during the 12 games of the initial set, the four players suddenly had trouble winning their serve during the tiebreaker of this first set.
Dabrowski and Routliffe were victims of four mini-breaks but they managed five, which allowed them to win the first set.
Dabrowski and Routliffe entered the second set strongly, winning the first three games, two of them serving their rivals.
They lost their serve in the fourth game but subsequently, they only conceded three points on their serve before ending the duel with a final break.
At that tournament, Dabrowski teamed up with Routliffe, an athlete who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Caledon, Ont., and once represented Canada.
This is the second time in 2023 that a Canadian has participated in a women’s doubles final in Grand Slam tournaments.
At the Internationals of France, the Lavalloise Leylah Fernandez had achieved this feat in the company of the American Taylor Townsend. They had however lost in three sets against Hsieh Su-wei and China’s Wang Xinyu.