It was déjà vu for Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe in Melbourne as their Australian Open campaign came to an end in the semifinals at the hands of Jelena Ostapenko for the second year in a row. The Latvian and her partner Su-Wei Hsieh defeated the Canadian-Kiwi pair in three sets on Friday.
Despite a quick start and a fightback in the second set, Dabrowski and Routliffe were unable to find a solution to the dangerous combination of Ostapenko’s power and Hsieh’s deft touch. The third-seeded Latvian-Taiwanese pair managed to edge out the second seeds 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-3.
A year ago, Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok defeated Dabrowski and Routliffe at this same stage. The loss on Friday snapped the Canadian-Kiwi team’s nine-match winning streak that dated back to the WTA Finals last November.
A double fault from Ostapenko on the first point set the tone for the early stages as Dabrowski and Routliffe broke the Latvian in the opening game and then broke Hsieh to love the first time she stepped up to serve as the second seeds raced out to a 3-0 lead.
However, despite some dominant net play from Dabrowski, Routliffe struggled on her own serve in the opening set. In each of her first two service games, she missed a swinging backhand volley at deuce to go down break point. The first time around, Ostapenko ripped a return winner to get one of the breaks back.
Prior to the 10th game, Dabrowski had been having the most routine service games and was the only of the four players yet to drop serve. However, serving out the set at 5-4 proved challenging for the Canadian. In a game that lasted over 11 minutes, she and Routliffe failed to convert three set points and saved three breaks point before finally Ostapenko ripped a backhand winner down the line on the fourth chance to level the set at 5-all.
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After a Dabrowski smash took the opening point of the tiebreak, Ostapenko took over, using her big hitting to claim back-to-back points on the Canadian’s serve and race out to a 4-1 lead. The third seeds never relinquished the advantage and wrapped up a long opening set with another Ostapenko return winner.
The second set was far less dramatic than the opener, with just a single break point making the difference. On Hsieh’s serve at 2-3, a wild rally ended with the Taiwanese putting a backhand into the net to give the Canadian-Kiwi team a break point. Ostapenko smacked a backhand of her own into the net to give away the break.
That proved to be the only break point of the entire set for either team and Dabrowski and Routliffe were able to ride it to the finish line, only dropping one point on their own serve after breaking serve.
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Despite having levelled the match, Dabrowski and Routliffe were unable to build on their momentum early in the decider. In their first service game of the set, Ostapenko once again teed off on a return to set up a double break point opportunity on Routliffe’s serve and the Kiwi double-faulted to hand the break and a 2-0 lead to the third seeds.
That was enough for Hsieh and Ostapenko. They never trailed on their own serve once they had the advantage and rode that one break through the deciding set and into the final.
With Dabrowski’s defeat, no Canadians remain at the 2025 Australian Open. All of the Canadians competing in singles lost in the first week. Leylah Annie Fernandez went out in the third round of the doubles, while Rob Shaw’s wheelchair campaign came to an end on Thursday.
Tickets for the Davis Cup Qualifiers 1st Round tie between Canada and Hungary are now on sale. Join us February 1 and 2 at IGA Stadium in Montreal, as the Canadian team begins their quest for the 2025 Davis Cup Final 8. To access tickets at early-bird pricing, click here.
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