The partnership between Luísa Stefani from São Paulo and Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski continues in the fight for the women’s doubles title at the WTA 1000 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. After qualifying for the quarter-finals this Tuesday (17), they are waiting for the tournament organizers to agree on the date and time of the match against Mexican Giulia Olmos and American Jessica Pegula.
Number 14 in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) doubles rankings, Luisa and Dabrowski (10th) needed one hour and nine minutes to defeat the partnership between Czech Marie Bouzkova (89th) and Indonesian Janice Tjen (57th) by 2 sets to 1.
After scoring 6/1 in the first set and losing the second by 6/3, they had to compete in the super tie-break, a tiebreaker in which whoever reaches ten points wins, common in matches between doubles. With a solid game, the Brazilian and Canadian won 10-3 and qualified.
“Great game, another victory, first super tie-break of the year, super happy to move forward. Here [Dubai]the conditions are very fast and with this scoring system we know that the game can change quickly”, said Luisa, in a press release.
Olmos (49th) and Pegula (5th in the world in singles, 204th in doubles), opponents in the quarterfinals, achieved a great result in the round of 16. On Monday (16), they beat, in two sets (double 6/3), the winning partnership of the Australian Open, the main tournament at the beginning of the season, formed by the Chinese Shuai Zhang (12th) and the Belgian Elise Mertens, the best doubles player in the ranking currently.
If they get past Olmos and Pegula, Luisa and Dabrowski could face the pair that eliminated them from the last two competitions, including the Australian Open. To do this, the partnership of Kazakh Anna Danilina (7th) and Serbian Aleksandra Krunic (11th) must beat the partnership formed by Indian Rutuja Bhosale (142nd) and Thai Peangtarn Plipuech (128th), in a clash scheduled for Wednesday (18th), with no timetable yet.
The WTA 1000 level tournaments are the main ones on the regular circuit. Considering the year as a whole, this type of competition is second only to the four Grand Slams (Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open).
