Defending champions Dabrowski, Routliffe, eliminated in group stage at WTA Finals

RIYADH — There will be no doubles title defence for Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe at the WTA Finals.

The third-seeded pair fell 2-6, 7-5, 10-5 to in their final group-stage match against seventh-seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Luisa Stefani of Brazil on Thursday at the season-ending tennis tournament.

With that result, the defending champions finished the group stage at 1-2 and did not advance to the semifinals.

Dabrowski and Routliffe had seven aces in the match, but otherwise struggled on serve.

The pair, who are also the reigning U.S. Open champions, won just 50.7 per cent of total service points and were broken three times on five chances in the second set, when Babos and Stefani mounted their comeback from a set down.

Babos, who is in the doubles semifinals for the fourth time, and Stefani, a former Dabrowski partner who is making her WTA Finals debut, will face Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko in Friday’s semifinals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.