Routlifffe, Dabrowski win in the rain at US Open

Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski have had their third successive straight-set victory at the US Open.

On Sunday (Monday NZ time) they defeated the unseeded duo of Jaqueline Cristian from Romania and Italy’s Angelica Moratelli 7-5 7-6(3) in a rain-interrupted match on Court 5.

The win means they’ve at least reached the quarterfinals in four of the five grand slams they’ve played together, since forming a formidable partnership ahead of last year’s US Open.

While this third-round match was another win in two sets for Routliffe and Dabrowski, they were made to work hard by their unseeded opponents.

After a break to both teams early in the opening set, the crucial game came when after a long battle Moratelli’s serve was broken at 5-5, with the game going to deuce five times.

Dabrowski served it out in the next game, with an unreturnable serve out wide on set point. 

There was a short rain delay when Routliffe was serving at 2-3 in the second set, then another one half an hour later just before the tiebreak could begin.

The players waited on court for about 10 minutes before the rain started to get heavier and they were then told to return to the locker room.

They came back almost an hour later and Routliffe and Dabrowski got a mini break from the first point.

The defending champions took control of the remainder of the tiebreak to win it 7-3 to make it nine wins in a row for the duo at the US Open.

In the quarterfinals they will ply the winner of the match between the No 10 seeds Chan Hao-Ching and Veronika Kudermetova against Harriet Dart and Diane Parry.