Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski has won her first WTA doubles title since reuniting with Brazil’s Luisa Stefani.
Fifth-seeded Dabrowski and Stefani defeated the unseeded duo of Germany’s Laura Siegemund and Russia’s Vera Zvonareva 6-1, 6-3 in Saturday’s final at the WTA 1000 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The match lasted an hour and 13 minutes, with Dabrowski and Stefani winning 59.3 percent of the total points.
They converted their only chance at a break point and saved both they faced.
The title is their second WTA 1000 trophy together and first in four years. They also won the National Bank Open in Montreal in 2021, along with a WTA 250 event in Chennai, India, in 2022.
The pair first worked together in 2020 before Stefani suffered a serious knee injury at the 2021 US Open.
They reunited this season after Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe ended a 2.5-year partnership in November that produced multiple titles, including two US Open women’s doubles titles.
Dubai marks the sixth WTA 1000 doubles title of Dabrowski’s career and the fourth for Stefani.
The result will take the 33-year-old Dabrowski to world number 2 in the WTA rankings on Monday, behind Belgium’s Elise Mertens.
“Rankings, they come, they go – I’m more interested in having a great partnership and consistently going deep in tournaments,” Dabrowski said. “That’s always been my goal, so I’m really happy to have achieved that. But a ranking doesn’t just happen; it’s about all the people who help you achieve that… so I couldn’t have achieved that number without them.”
The final lacked the drama of the earlier rounds.
Dabrowski and Stefani needed match tiebreaks in three of their four matches en route to the final, saving three match points in a 6-2, 4-6,14-12 quarterfinal victory over Giuliana Olmos and Jessica Pegula.
They then defeated Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic 4-6, 6-2, 10-6 in the semi-finals, after losing to the pair in Doha earlier this month.
“I am very happy to win our first title here in Dubai,” said Stefani. “You don’t do a WTA 1000 every week, so I am very happy with this victory and proud of our team.”
Dabrowski, who revealed in 2024 that she had been treated for breast cancer, dedicated the victory to the father of a close friend who is battling cancer.
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