Routliffe and Dabrowski bow out of WTA Finals after super-tiebreak defeat

Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski have been knocked out of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following their tight 2-6 7-5 10-5 loss to Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani on Thursday.

The defending champions needed to win their final pool game, after losing to Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova in their previous match

But despite making a bright start to comfortably take the opening set and having an early break in the second, Routliffe and Dabrowski found themselves in a real battle as the Hungarian/Brazilian team found some momentum.

The No 7 seeds were able to break Dabrowski’s serve when the Canadian was serving 5-6 in the second set to take the match into a third-set super tiebreak.

Babos won a sharp exchange at the net to secure the first mini-break, and from there her team stayed ahead. 

A superb backhand winner from Babos pushed their advantage to 8-5, and they sealed victory on their first match point when Routliffe missed a smash into the net, when moving backwards.

"This year we had two very tough matches against Gaby and Erin," Babos said afterwards. 

"Both times we were leading and then both times we couldn't close it out, and they ended up winning the tournament. It's a little bit karma, in a way, but we deserved it."

Routliffe will next play in Poland when she’s part of the New Zealand Billie Jean King Cup team that will take on Poland and Romania from November 14.