Erin Routliffe back at her special place

Erin Routliffe will experience her fourth Wimbledon Championships this week and for the 28-year-old the place never loses its magic.

“The first time I played here was in 2018 and I’ve been here again two other times before this year and it always gives you that same feeling, that this is a special place,” Routliffe said. 

“Every tennis player dreams of playing at Wimbledon, so I’m keeping that mindset.”

The first year Routliffe played at the All England Lawn Tennis club, she and Alexa Guarachi, who is also her partner this year, battled through the qualifying draw before losing a three-set match in the first round of the main draw.

There was another first round exit in 2019, but last year she and Alicja Rosolska from Poland made it to the quarterfinals, the furthest a Kiwi women’s player had gone at Wimbledon since Marina Erakovic reached the semifinals in 2011. 

Routliffe and Guarachi, from Chile, have been drawn against Irina-Camelia Begu from Romania and Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina in the first round of the ladies doubles and will play on either Wednesday or Thursday.

Routliffe also hopes to play in the mixed doubles, especially as she just missed out on making it into that draw at Roland Garros this year and she is attempting to play with Australia’s Jason Kubler, who is ranked 74 in the world in singles.

“At the French Open we would have made it in for the last 11 years. We were the first alternate, but no one pulled out,” Routliffe said.

“You can’t really predict the cuts in mixed. Last year it was 80 and this year it was 57 or something. It just depends who wants to play. 

“We’re going to try again, we have pretty good rankings and I think we’ve got a shot. If we don’t, I’ll cross that bridge but we’ll definitely try to play.”

As well as being New Zealand’s No 1 doubles player, Routliffe became the country’s highest ranked singles player in May and is currently at 588 in the world, with the vast majority of her points coming from making it through qualifying and into the second round at the WTA tournament Strasbourg.

Routliffe’s focus is solely on doubles, but she is a quality singles player, as was demonstrated by her tight 6-2 4-6 6-4 loss to Romania’s Elena-Gabriela Ruse at this year’s ASB Classic.

“If I’m playing a WTA 250 tournament or a 125, although I don’t play a lot of them, I will sign up [for singles],” Routliffe said.

“In Florence I got in and played a good player, (Celine Naef, from Switzerland), who qualified for Wimbledon. Then I signed in the next week (in Strasbourg) and got in again.  

“I love playing singles and I think it makes my doubles game better. It can’t hurt me to do it, unless I’m managing an injury of some kind. 

“So I got a win, then was fortunate to make it into the main draw as a lucky loser and got to play Su-Wei Hsieh.

“I remember watching her on TV as a kid and she would just toy with people. I’d watch her with my dad and we’d think she’d make her opponent hate their lives on a tennis court because she was so crafty.

“I went into it trying to play doubles on a singles court, I was serve and volleying, I was drop shotting a lot, trying to hit heavy and it rattled her.

“Obviously she wasn’t at her best. She’s an amazing player for sure, but she’s on the comeback.

“Being on clay, the points were really long and that’s how I ended up straining my abdomen, which is why I pulled out of playing in the next round, but I don’t regret doing it.

“It was a lot of fun and it gave me some confidence, I really enjoyed it.”

The 7-6 1-6 6-1 win over Su-Wei Hsieh set up a match against former world No 3, Elina Svitolina and it would have given Routliffe a chance to test herself against one of the best players in the world. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

“When I did the injury in the match against Su-Wei Hsieh I was going to pull out, but the trainer said if I don’t feel more pain, I’m not hurting it any more,” Routliffe said.

“It stayed the same. But I woke up the next day and it was a lot worse, I played my doubles and then asked to have two days [off] before my singles.

“I didn’t pull out until the day of my singles, because I was hoping for it to go away overnight, so I could play, because it would have been so much fun.

“I’ve never played someone who’s been ranked that high, so it was a bummer, but it was a week before I was playing doubles at a grand slam, so I’m not going to go out and hurt myself more, because that would be unfair to my partner and unfair to me.

“It was a difficult decision, but it had to be done.”