Number 2 seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend came back from 2-5 down in the second set to beat Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe 6-4 7-6 (7-3) taking a 2-0 lead in the Liezel Huber doubles Group at the WTA Finals in Riyadh.
Siniakova and Townsend avenged their defeat against Dabrowski and Routliffe at last year’s title match at last year’s WTA Finals in Riyadh. They also took revenge for a 6-4 6-4 defeat against Dabrowski and Routliffe at this year’s US Open.
Siniakova and Townsend drew level to 2-2 in their head-to-head match.
Townsend was the only player not to be broken and never faced a break point.
Siniakova and Townsend hit two return winners (a lob by Townsend and a volley winner by Siniakova) to break Dabrowski to take a 4-3 lead in the first set.
Siniakova was broken at 1-2 in the second set. Townsend broke back with a return winner, as Routliffe was serving out the set at 5-3.
Siniakova and Townsend earned an early mini-break at the start of the tie-break. Dabrowski and Routliffe pulled back on serve to draw level to 2-2. Siniakova and Townsend opened up a 5-2 lead with a second mini-break.
Townsend converted her first match point with a service with a service winner.
“It’s always tough when you lose to the same team and it’s so close. At the US Open it was just a break in each set. We worked really hard the last few days in practice. We compiled all the data from the matches that we’ve played before, and came out and just wanted to execute on the game plan”, said Townsend in the post match interview.
