Number 2 seeds and 2023 US Open doubles champions Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe saved a match point to beat Olympic champions Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini 1-6 7-6 (7-1) 11-9 in the match between the two winners of Sunday’s round-robin matches.
Dabrowski and Routliffe now lead 2-0 in the White Group of the doubles tournament at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. They backed up their straight-set win against Chan Hao-Ching and Veronika Kudemertova.
Errani and Paolini won the first 14 points of the opening set. They broke twice in the second and sixth games to win the first set 6-1 after 23 minutes.
Dabrowski broke serve with a backhand passing shot to take a 4-1 lead in the second set. Errani and Paolini broke back in the seventh game. Dabrowski and Routliffe broke serve in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead. Errani and Paolini broke back in the ninth game and held serve at 15 to draw level to 5-5. Both teams traded breaks in the 11th and 12th games to send the second set to the tie-break Dabrowski and Routliffe earned four mini-breaks to win the tie-break 7-1.
Dabrowski won the best point of the match when she hit a volley winner to take a 8-7 lead in the match tie-break. Errani and Paolini earned a match point at 9-8 but Routliffe saved it and hit two first serves to take a 10-9 lead.
Routliffe earned the first match point with a series of service winners. Dabrowski and Rotliffe converted the match point with a backhand return from Dabrowski.
