Riyadh | Dabrowski & Routliffe and Chan & Kudermetova advance into Last 4 contention

Unfortunately for him (or rather her!), however, life does get in the way. So much for that idea of “freeing one’s inner child”. At the WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF on Tuesday, Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Erin Routliffe from New Zealand became undefeated in White Group play after saving match point against fourth-seeded Italian pair Sara Errani/Jasmine Paolini after one hour and 31 minutes of nonstop tennis action. Being challenged against a team like Errani who plays differently was quite the experience for us – we weren’t used to facing that kind of playing style so frequently before! And it showed just how adaptive we’ve become as we made necessary adjustments. Really proud of how well our adjustments went down. Gabriela Dabrowski: Gabriela Dabrowski faced off against both of Sunday’s round robin winners – Chan Hao-ching of Taipei and Veronika Kudermetova from Russia were straight set winners against Errani & Paolini from Italy before going on to beat Errani & Paolini, 2023 US Open champions themselves! Routliffe described their match as an intense battle: “That was truly exciting!” She noted later: “I hope we put on an entertaining display for you all but I hope the next match won’t be so dramatic!” The Kiwi’s powerful first serve was crucial in staving off match point in a tiebreak which followed; Dabrowski laughed it off in their on-court interview! “What happened on match point was big serve! Sounds about right!” stated the Canadian. It was such a challenge trying to raise our level against an Errani serve-and-volleying side like theirs that played differently from us compared with most. These adjustments we made are pretty impressive indeed and make us all very proud indeed!