Straight sets win for defending US Open champions

Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski made an impressive start to their title defence at the US Open with a 6-4 6-2 win over Leylah Fernandez and Yulia Putintseva in the opening round.

It took one hour, 11 minutes for Routliffe and Dabrowski to defeat their opponents from Canada and Kazakhstan and they got to play in familiar surroundings on Thursday (Friday NZ time).

The match was moved from Court 6 to Arthur Ashe Stadium because the two singles matches earlier in the day both finished quickly, with straight sets wins to Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek.

So Routliffe and Dabrrowski were back on the same could where they beat Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva in last year’s final.

On paper, this looked to be a tough opening match for Routliffe and Dabrowski, Fernandez is a world-class doubles player, while she and Putintseva are both exceptional singles players.

But this was a determined and high-level performance from Routliffe and Dabrowski, who played at a consistently high level and didn’t give away many free points. 

Routliffe and Dabrowski did lose the first two games of the opening set but came back to win it comfortably, with Routliffe crushing a backhand winner between Fernandez and Putintseva on the final point.

Putintseva’s serve was broken in the third game of the second set and the same thing happened when again served at 2-4.

On match point in the next game, Dabrowski’s big serve couldn’t be returned by Fernandez, bringing an end to this contest.

Earlier in the day, Lulu Sun and China’s Wang Xiyu lost their first-round doubles match 6-4 6-3 against Tereza Mihalkova from Slovakia and Britain’s Olivia Nicholls.

Although the result wasn’t what Sun would have wanted, her fans would have been pleased to see her on court again so soon after having to retire from her first-round singles match against Lucia Bronzetti with a hip injury.

Meanwhile, there was a surprise later in the day in the mixed doubles, with No 2 seeds Routliffe and Michael Venus losing to the American duo of Alycia Parks and Jackson Withrow 6-4 6-4.