Erin Routliffe, Gaby Dabrowski Win First Title On Clay

Erin Routliffe has claimed back to back WTA titles following her triumph in Stuttgart with Gaby Dabrowski.

Fresh from winning the tournament in Charleston a fortnight ago with Jelena Ostapenko, the Kiwi reunited with her regular partner, Dabrowski, to lift the trophy in the German city.

It was not only a change in partner for Routliffe, but also a move from green to red clay, but she had no problem dealing with the transition.

In the final on Sunday (Monday NZ time), Routliffe and Dabrowski defeated Ekaterina Alexandrova from Russia and China’s Zhang Shuai 6-3 6-3 in a match that lasted for just over an hour and a quarter.

Routliffe and her Canadian partner broke their opponents’ serve three times during the opening set and although the second set had the same scoreline it was a tighter battle, with the top seeds converting two of the eight break points they had.

Because Dabrowski missed a large part of the 2024 season as she recovered from breast cancer, this tournament was the first time she and Routliffe had played together at a clay court event.

It was a magnificent debut for them as a team on the surface, winning two of their three matches in straight sets, while in the semifinal against Timea Babos from Hungary and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani, they comfortably won the third set super tiebreak, 10-4.

This is the 10th title in Routliffe’s career and fifth with Dabrowski. It’s also their first title of 2025 after a tough couple of months, but this victory should give them confidence as they continue through the European clay court part of the season, which continues with the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid, Spain.

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