Remarkable season and new ranking for Routliffe

New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe has reached a career high world doubles ranking of 11 after her incredible debut performance at the WTA Finals in Mexico.

Routliffe and her Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski won their first three matches in straight sets at the season-ending championships in Cancun.

This included a massive upset in the opening match against the number one seeds Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, beating the Americans 7-6, 6-3.

The New Zealand/Canadian duo came into the tournament as the seventh seeds after stringing together a series of impressive performances in the space of a few months, including a Grand Slam win in New York and a WTA 500 title in Zhengzhou, China.

Routliffe was the first player from New Zealand to compete in the WTA Finals.

She and Dabrowski only started playing together back in August and their first tournament win together was the US Open in September.

Since then they have added another title to their partnership and they won 13 out of 16 matches in the lead up to the WTA Finals, where their good form only continued.

In their second match, they beat the sixth seeds Vera Zvonareva and Laura Siegemund 6-4, 6-2.

And in the third match, Routliffe and Dabrowski overcame the fourth seeds Kateřina Siniaková and Barbora Krejčíková 6-4, 7-5.

It was a dream run that came to an end on Monday morning (NZT) in the semi-final, despite a tough and determined fight right to the end.

Routliffe and Dabrowski went down 1-6, 7-6, 6-10 to Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Ellen Perez.

For the 28-year-old from New Zealand, it has been a season unlike any other. 

Routliffe now has five WTA doubles titles to her name, including a Grand Slam, and she is ranked 11 in the world.

Three of those five titles have come this season.

And there’s no stopping now.

As Routliffe pointed out a few weeks ago ahead of her and Dabrowski’s trip to Mexico for the WTA Finals, “I'm excited for more because I think we can do a lot of really good things together in the future”.

The world number 11 and world number 8 have shown the international tennis community this season that no other team is safe and every tournament is up for grabs.