Gaby Dabrowski held serve to love to start the doubles quarter-final in Zhengzhou when she and Erin Routliffe played Ingrid Gamarra Martins and Dabrowski’s former doubles partner Luisa Stefani, but it surprised me that Gamarra Martins served next because Stefani is, to me at least, a better server.
My instincts proved correct when, after Routliffe hammered her first return of serve into the net, a double fault was followed by Gamarra Martins being forced to hit a cross-court forehand wide when Routliffe got her second return spot on. Another double fault gave away break points, and a tame forehand into the net from Gamarra Martins saw the end of the game.
Routliffe copied her partner by holding to love, and then hit a beautiful forehand winner down the tramlines to save the first game point when Stefani served. The first great rally of the match came on the next point, with Stefani smashing away a volley to hold serve.
She then hit a beautiful forehand return down the singles sideline off Dabrowski, and forced Routliffe to hit a forehand volley over the baseline to give up the first deuce of the match. Stefani returned the deciding point only as far as Routliffe at the net, who smashed away the winning volley.
Gamarra Martins and Routliffe then had comfortable holds, which left Stefani serving to stay in the set. She did force Routliffe into a return error, but lost the three points which followed that. A double fault gave away two set points, and Gamarra Martins was forced to hit a backhand volley over the baseline to end the set after 29 minutes.
Dabrowski held comfortably to start the second set, but Gamarra Martins’ first game saw more individual action in the first three points than we had seen in the whole of the first set. It began with a beautiful forehand volley from Stefani, which was followed by the shot of the match, a wonderful forehand drop volley from Routliffe which she landed too deeply to be retrieved.
She won the next point as well, with a beautiful forehand volley to end a fantastic short rally, and forced Gamarra Martins to paly that same cross-court forehand wide off a huge return of serve that we had seen in the second game. That gave away a break point, but Routliffe was forced into a backhand error to go to deuce, and Stefani won the deciding point with a backhand volley that cannoned off Dabrowski’s racquet.
The rest of that service rotation saw comfortable holds, the only outstanding point being a great short rally when Stefani served, which was won by a nice cross-court backhand volley from Gamarra Martins.
There were great rallies on consecutive points when Gamarra Martins served, Dabrowski and Stefani losing them respectively with forced errors, but Gamarra Martins served a double fault before hitting a forehand over the baseline to give away another deuce. Again it was Stefani to the rescue, smashing away Routliffe’s soft return of the deciding point.
Routliffe hit a beautiful forehand volley through the middle of the court to win her second point, but her next shot was outstanding. She went to smash away a volley, but you could see her change her mind to let the ball bounce before hitting one of the hardest smashes I’ve ever seen on the WTA circuit. Even on a slow-motion replay you simply couldn’t see the ball disappear.
Stefani and Gamarra Martins got forced into a series of errors to lose the former’s serve in the next game, and another smash from Routliffe after the ball had bounced gave her and Dabrowski four match points. The Canadian served a double fault on the first of them, but Gamarra Martins’ attempted return of the second went into the net.
The match had taken an hour and nine minutes, the final score being 6-2, 6-3. Their semi-final will be on Saturday, with the match to decide their opponents being on Friday night. As far as the Race to Cancun is concerned, they now need just two more wins to guarantee them a position in the Year End Championships.