The second-seeded team of Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe advanced to the women’s doubles quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships with a 5-7, 6-2, 10-6 second-round win over China’s Zhang Shuai and Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina on Wednesday.
After losing a close first set, Dabrowski and Routliffe responded with a dominant second set. They saved the only break point they faced while breaking their opponents twice on six chances.
They then won 100 per cent of first-serve points, including their lone ace of the match, to take the third set.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face the sixth-seeded duo of Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 tournament.
It’s a rematch from this year’s Australian Open semi-finals, which Kichenok and Ostapenko won 7-5, 7-5.
Wednesday’s win was a bounce back for Dabrowski and Routliffe, who were upset in the second round of the Qatar Open last week by Ekaterina Alexandrova and Irina Khromacheva of Russia.