Kiwi Erin Routliffe is through to her first-ever Grand Slam doubles semi, after she and Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski fought back from a set down to win their quarter-final at the US Open.
The pair won a dramatic women’s doubles quarterfinal match, ousting sixth seeds Taylor Townsend and Leylah Fernandez 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8), on Louis Armstrong Stadium – the second biggest court at Flushing Meadows.
"Really long, I’m really tired, it’s kind of the opposite of Gaby a little in the sense that I don’t have any memories on that court, so now I’ll forever remember it," Routliffe told media following her thrilling win.
The result is quite the achievement by Routliffe, who is the first New Zealand woman to reach a Grand Slam semi-final, since Marina Erakovic did it at 2011 Wimbledon.
"We played against two amazing players, and I think we had point-one percent of the crowd on our side, so I think it was really tough.
"We were brave even after we weren’t brave when we were trying to close it out the first time.
"Really happy and hope it was exciting for everyone to watch, I guess we put on a show"
The exhilarating contest lasted two and half hours, but it did not look that way in the opening set, with Routliffe and Dabrowski overwhelmed.
They lifted their game in the second set, producing 16 winners to force a deciding set.
They used that momentum to storm to a 4-1 lead in the final set, but Townsend and Fernandez, who reached the French Open finals this year, showed that form to fight back and take the match to a 10-point super tiebreak.
Routliffe and Dabrowski made a slow start and went down 7-2, before they stormed back into it.
The Kiwi-Canadian pair reeled off six straight points, which included back-to-back double faults from Townsend and a stunning ace from Routliffe at 7-7, to win 10-8 and advance to the semifinals.
That wasn’t the only tense moment during the match, at 5-5 in the final set Routliffe urged the umpire to remove an abusive spectator, that she thought was trying to intimidate her Candaian partner.
"Basically, it was me trying to stick up for Gaby, he was targeting Gaby every time she would go over to her towel he would just be in her face," Rouliffe said.
"I’m all for cheering for your favourite team and everything like that in a respectful way.
"You can’t target a specific person like that I think that’s inappropriate, so yeah I asked for him to leave or at least to get him to calm down. I don’t if it was dramatic to want him out, but I’ve seen it done before."
They’ll face either American duo and women’s singles stars Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, or eighth seeds Taiwan’s Su-wei Hsieh and China’s Xinyu Wang.
