Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and her partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand advanced to the women’s doubles quarterfinals of the Australian Open Sunday after bouncing Laura Siegemund of Germany and Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 in a match that took almost 2 1/2 hours.
Dabrowski and Routliffe started slowly, but got stronger as the match progressed, finishing with three aces and a 73 winning percentage on first serves. They saved six of seven break points and won 43 points while receiving.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will play Miyu Kato of Japan and Renata Zarazua in the quarters.
Leylah Fernandez’s run at the Open came to a quick end Sunday as the Canadian and Ukraine partner Nadiia Kichenok lost their third-round women’s doubles match in straight sets.
American Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova of Czechia only needed 54 minutes to bounce Fernandez and Kichenok 6-3, 6-0.
Fernandez, of Laval, Que., and Kichenok had no aces and went 0-for-3 on breakpoints. They only won 14 service points and three service games.
Townsend and Siniakova had four aces, two double faults, 20 receiving points won, won 34 service points and eight service games.
Fernandez lost her third-round singles match 6-4, 6-2 to American Coco Gauff on Friday.
Sinner advances
First came the medical timeouts, one each for Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune with the temperature above 32 C.
Then came the bizarre sight of a 20-minute delay because the net at Rod Laver Arena detached from the court after being hit by a big Sinner serve.
In the end, the breaks in action were “lucky,” Sinner said, because they gave him a chance to catch his breath, put his struggles aside and emerge with the victory — as he keeps doing, no matter the site or the circumstances. The defending champion moved into the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park on Monday by eliminating the 13th-seeded Rune 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
“I don’t want to talk so much [about] how I felt today. I was not feeling really well. I think we saw that today. I was struggling physically,” Sinner said, declining to say exactly what was wrong. “Playing against a tough opponent, but also playing against myself a little bit.”
The No. 1-ranked Sinner occasionally tried to cool off by pressing a cold towel to his face or pouring water down the back of his neck. He was far better down the stretch, both after a 10-minute-plus delay in the third set when he went to the locker room for medical attention and after a 20-minute holdup in the fourth when the screw connecting the net to the blue playing surface came undone.
“It was a bit helpful. I at least felt slightly better when I went back on court,” Sinner said about seeing a doctor. “I felt like the face looked a little bit better, the colour was a little bit back.”
He’s won 18 consecutive tour-level matches, dating back to late 2024. Last season, Sinner went 73-6 with eight titles, the first man with that many tournament championships in a single year since Andy Murray in 2016.
Sinner will play No. 8 Alex de Minaur of Australia, who defeated unseeded Alex Michelsen of the U.S. 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-3 at night to reach the quarterfinals at his home Grand Slam tournament for the first time. A second Italian joined Sinner in the quarterfinals when 55th-ranked Lorenzo Sonego got that far at a major tournament for the first time by ending the run of American qualifier Learner Tien 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
Sonego will go up against No. 21 Ben Shelton, who advanced when 38-year-old Gael Monfils of France quit because of an injury early in the fourth set. The 22-year-old American was leading 7-6 (3), 6-7 (3), 7-6 (2), 1-0 after nearly three hours when Monfils, who is married to Svitolina, called a halt to the match.
Swiatek, Keys move on
In the women’s fourth round, 2017 U.S. Open runner-up Madison Keys eliminated 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, and now plays Elina Svitolina, a 6-4, 6-1 winner against Veronika Kudermetova. Five-time major champion Iga Swiatek had, no surprise here, an easy time beating “lucky loser” Eva Lys 6-1, 6-0 in just 59 minutes.
Swiatek, who will face No. 8 Emma Navarro next, compiled a 28-7 edge in winners and has ceded a grand total of 11 games through four matches in the tournament. Contrast that to Navarro’s path: Her 6-4, 5-7, 7-5 win against No. 9 Daria Kasatkina was the American’s fourth three-setter in four matches in Melbourne, and she has dropped more than 60 games while spending more than 10 hours on court.
Off the court, Swiatek’s one-month suspension for failing a drug test will not be appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency because her explanation “is plausible,” WADA announced.
“Well, for sure, I’m just satisfied that I can get closure, kind of,” Swiatek said, “and I can just move on and finish this whole process, because I just want to play tennis and focus on the tournament.”
Unlike the Swiatek case, WADA did appeal the exoneration of Sinner and a hearing is scheduled to be heard in April at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Finished ban during off-season
Sinner was not suspended because the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) determined he was not negligent for two positive tests for an anabolic steroid in March.
The resolution of Swiatek’s case was made public by the ITIA in late November. She already had been sidelined provisionally, missing three tournaments in October, and finished her ban during the sport’s off-season.
“WADA sought advice from external legal counsel, who considered that the athlete’s contamination explanation was well evidenced, that the ITIA decision was compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, and that there was no reasonable basis to appeal it to the CAS,” Monday’s statement from WADA said.
Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a heart medication known as TMZ.
Swiatek failed an out-of-competition drug test in August, and the ITIA accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional, and caused by the contamination of the non-prescription medication melatonin that she was taking for issues with jet lag and sleeping
