A semifinal loss for New Zealand's Erin Routliffe and Canadian Gaby Dabrowski in the women's doubles at the Australian Open on Margaret Court Arena.
The second seeds were defeated 7-6(3) 3-6 6-3 to the unorthodox duo of Lativia's Jelena Ostapenko and Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei in a match which changed tact at every turn.
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The New Zealand and Canadian player raced to a 3-0 lead in the first set after a couple of breaks of serve but couldn't hold on as Grand Slam singles winner Ostapenko picked up her aggression and Hsieh Su-Wei hit returns from all angles for the first set in a tiebreak.
In the tiebreak, Ostapenko and Hsieh were up 4-2 at the change of ends and at 6-3, Ostapenko smashed a return winner off Dabrowski’s serve.
Routliffe and Dabrowski combined well to take the second set, but the Kiwi double faulted on break point early in the third set and the Latvian and Taipei player never looked back, holding serve for the rest of the match.
It was the second time Ostapenko had beaten Routliffe and Dabrowski in the semifinals in Melbourne. Last year she did it with Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok.
"We did a lot of good things today. We had a lot of opportunities, but we could have gone out in the first round, so it was a good effort in the end,"
said Routliffe.
"It was the start we wanted, but they played well and are so tough to beat."
Despite this loss, Routliffe had a strong Australian Open, reaching the semifinals in both women’s and mixed doubles with Dabrowski and Michael Venus as her partners, on little training after injury.
In the five Grand Slams they have played together their record is 2023 US Open winner, Australian Open 2024 semifinals, Wimbledon 2024 runners up, US Open 2024 quarterfinals and Australian Open 2025 semifinals.
The pair share A$250,000 in prizemoney from the women's doubles and now plan to have a training block before playing the big WTA 1000 tournaments in the Middle East