Dabrowski and Routliffe avenge Wimbledon loss to win WTA Finals Riyadh

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- No.2 seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe capped off a perfect week at the WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF, defeating Wimbledon champions Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova 7-5, 6-3 to win the doubles championship.

WTA Finals Riyadh: Scores | Schedule | Standings

The win is Dabrowski and Routliffe's fourth team title and second of the 2024 Hologic WTA Tour season. They also won on the grass at the WTA 250 in Nottingham over the summer. Riyadh is Dabrowski's 16th career doubles title and Routliffe's eighth. 

"We've been through a lot this year," Routliffe said, "and we've always stuck by each other and really committed to each other and supported each other. So I think this is kind of an accumulation of the entire year, and it means a lot."

To finish the week as undefeated champions, Dabrowski and Routliffe avenged their loss to Townsend and Siniakova in the Wimbledon final as well as a loss in their US Open title defense to Chan Hao-Ching and Veronika Kudermetova. They also reversed their 2023 WTA Finals semifinal loss to Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Ellen Perez, besting the American-Australian team in the semifinals.  

Dabrowski and Routliffe also came from match point down to upend Olympic champions Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in the group stage. 

In a showdown between the two undefeated teams of the week, Dabrowski and Routliffe maintained an edge throughout the opening set before surging to break Townsend and Siniakova for the set. Serving to take the set to a tiebreak, Siniakova was broken from 40-15 up. Dabrowski and Routliffe strung together three crucial returns of serve to win the last three points of the set and take the early lead. 

The second set continued to form. Siniakova and Townsend fought to stay level with Dabrowski and Routliffe, coming from a break down and winning two remarkable break points to stay level at 3-3.

But Dabrowski and Routliffe kept their cool, winning the last three games to close out the win.

"I think they're an amazing team, and they're amazing from basically every position in the court," Routliffe said. "So I think when it comes down to those big moments, the big thing for us was we just wanted to go and take it, and they weren't gonna give it to us. So we tried to kind of pep talk ourselves to go for our shots and be more aggressive in those big moments. I think that's probably what the difference maker was.

"We stayed aggressive, we stayed committed, and we supported each other in those big moments. With the scoring system, it's hard. You have to do that or else you won't win. So you really have no choice. So I think we did that well today."

Siniakova, who won five titles with five different partners this season, including Roland Garros (w/ Coco Gauff) and Wimbledon, will finish as the year-end Doubles No.1 for the fourth time. Dabrowski, Siniakova and Townsend will next head to Malaga, Spain to represent their respective nations at the Billie Jean King Cup.