How have Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe developed into one of the WTA's most dynamic doubles teams?
Canada's Dabrowski and Canada-born New Zealander Routliffe capped 2024 with victory at the WTA Finals, stamping their authority on the top of the game.
Looking back, looking forward. With the 2024 WTA season in the books, Joel Drucker has nine notable storylines to consider over the next few weeks—before the next year of women's tennis begins. (On mobile devices, scroll down to read more WTA takeways; on desktop, you'll see additional entires on the left side of your screen.)
Gabriela Dabrowski’s career-high singles ranking is 164 and Erin Routliffe’s is 582. But since commencing their doubles partnership in August of 2023, these two have blossomed.
Last year, in only their fourth tournament together, they won the US Open. This year, Dabrowski and Routliffe won Nottingham, reached the final at Wimbledon, and capped off 2024 with a title run at the WTA Finals.
"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."
Their success is a tribute to sound awareness of how to practice, refine, and play effective doubles: minimize singles-like baseline rallies, get to net as quickly as possible, dispatch lobs, and maintain a smile amid adversity.