Tennis Canada – Pascal Ratthé
She becomes the first player since Faye Urban in 1969 to win the Canadian doubles championship.
Gabriela Dabrowski (Ottawa, ON) became the first Canadian to win the doubles championship of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers since Daniel Nestor in 2008. With her partner Luisa Stefani of Brazil, Dabrowski defeated Darija Jurak of Croatia and Andreja Klepac of Slovenia, 6-3, 6-4.
The revenge was sweet for Dabrowski and Stefani, who lost to Jurak and Klepac (6-1, 7-5) in last week’s final in San Jose.
“We’re really happy. It was so nice to play in front of Canadian tennis fans,” said Gabriela Dabrowski after the match. “Overall, it’s great. I’m really proud of our performance this week. It’s not always easy to come here. There are different pressures involved. I’m really happy that we were able to play even better than we did last week. We’re just building going forward.”
“It’s always exceptional when our Canadians win a tournament, and it’s even more sensational when they do it here, in Canada,” affirmed Eugène Lapierre, tournament director of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers in Montréal. “We are very proud that Gabriela and her partner Luisa Stefani are our champions this year. They played brilliant tennis all week. We are also very pleased for Gabriela, who adds a 10th women’s doubles trophy to her collection and continues to prove why she is Canada’s best player in the history of women’s doubles.”
Fifth seeds Dabrowski and Stefani (5e) got to the final after a tough run during which they ousted top seeds Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-2. Throughout the competition, the pair set a frenetic pace for their adversaries and dropped only one set in their first four matches in Montréal. In the final, they maintained the rhythm and never let Jurak and Klepac get ahead, sometimes leading by three games.
Dabrowski scored her second WTA 1000 title since Miami in 2017. She secured her last championship in 2019 in Nuremberg with Yifan Xu of China in their match against Sharon Fichman and Nicole Melichar of the US (4-6, 7-6 (3), 10-5). She now holds 10 women’s doubles titles and 2 mixed doubles crowns (Roland-Garros and Australian Open). As for Luisa Stefani, she earned her third WTA title. She also won in Lexington (2020) and Tashkent (2019) with Hayley Carter.
