Routliffe into quarterfinals in Charleston with new partner

Erin Routliffe has got her partnership with Jelena Ostapenko off to a winning start, with a 2-6 6-3 10-2 victory over Viktoriya Tomova from Bulgaria and America’s Katie Volynets in the first round of the Charleston Open.

Routliffe isn’t playing with her regular partner, Gaby Dabrowski this week and has teamed up with the Latvian, who has shown throughout her career how exceptional she is at both forms of the game.

After a shaky start, Routliffe and Ostapenko found their groove, getting three breaks of serve in the second set and then dominating the super tiebreak.

Routliffe and Ostapenko are the top seeds on the green clay in South Carolina and in the quarterfinals take on Ekaterina Alexandrova from Russia and China’s Zhang Shuai.

Regardless of how she does in Charleston, Routliffe will remain at No 3 in the world rankings.

After this week, Routliffe will head across the Atlantic for the European clay court season.