Erin Routliffe taking time to soak in second US Open title

A couple of days after the noise of New York, Erin Routliffe is back in Toronto, with family and friends, reflecting on what she’s just achieved.

What she is soaking in is a second US Open title, won alongside Canadian partner Gaby Dabrowski. In last weekend’s final, they defeated top seeds Katerina Siniaková and Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-4.

In what feels like a never ending season for professional tennis players, Routliffe has made sure she has a bit of down time.

“It’s really important to celebrate when you have wins like this, or when you achieve things that you’ve been working your entire life for,” Routliffe said. 

“So we did that all together, and I’ll do that for the next few days and try to really just embrace this time and take a few days off and really let it soak in before getting back to it.”

The victory marked another step in the partnership she and Dabrowski began just over two years ago. 

“For Gaby and I, with our partnership, we’ve always said that together, we wanted to be multiple-time Grand Slam champions,” Routliffe said. 

“That’s a goal we had together, so to check that off is something we’re really happy to do.”

Her family were in the stands in New York and she was able to celebrate with them after the final.

“We just had a nice dinner and drinks afterwards with everybody,” she said. 

“We had a lot of family come, mine from Toronto, Gaby had some come from Ottawa and Florida and so it was really nice to be with everybody, and not just be by ourselves.”

The return home is also a pause before the next chapter. Routliffe is quick to remind herself that the tennis season doesn’t wait. 

She has tournaments in Beijing and Wuhan coming up, while winning the US Open secures their spot in the WTA Finals in Riyadh.

But the time in Canada has also given her space to acknowledge the challenges that made this second title so satisfying. “The tour is so hard, you have to lose all the time, and you’re just always trying to get a little bit better every week,” she said. 

“But sometimes, if you can’t get on the winning end of some really close matches, you question a lot of things, and sometimes lose that belief.”

The doubts were real this season. Routliffe admits 2025 has not been as straight forward as last year. 

“It’s not been as consistent of a year as it was last year, but to get our second slam, it does make it better,” she said.

For Routliffe, it’s not about comparing the 2023 and 2025 US Open titles, though many have questioned her about that. 

“Everyone’s asking me to compare the first one to this one and it’s really hard,” she said. “They both are so special to me in different ways. But we were just ecstatic.”