NATIONAL BANK OPEN

August 11, 2024

Gabriela Dabrowski

Erin Routliffe

Press Conference

DABROWSKI-ROUTLIFFE/L. Fernandez-B. Fernandez.

6-2, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Who would like to ask the first question?

Q. Gaby, your thoughts on the match tonight, and playing another final at the NBO tomorrow.

GABRIELA DABROWSKI: Super happy to be in another final, of course. Today I thought we played a lot more clinical than our other matches, which I'm really proud of us for, to change that within basically one or two days, great improvement there.

I thought Erin played really well from beginning to end, served really well, we had really good play calls, had good execution, and I think we put the pressure on them, and that reflected in a couple errors here and there, so, yeah, I liked our level.

Q. Could you just talk about your game throughout the whole tournament as a doubles team and just key factors that added to your success.

ERIN ROUTLIFFE: Yeah, I think first tournament on hard court, we're trying to figure out our game again. Changing surfaces is never easy.

GABRIELA DABROWSKI: And balls.

ERIN ROUTLIFFE: Yeah, true, balls. Yeah, I think we're an aggressive team, we like to play on our terms, make a lot of play calls, first serves, and we like to get a lot of first touches off the serve, and that's probably when we're playing our best, so I think that's something that we definitely improved on in comparison to yesterday and the day before is we had a lot more rallies. Today it was like more, yeah, like she said, clinical. Yeah, I think we're just trying to get better every match, and I think that from yesterday to today definitely we got better, so I think that's something we're pretty proud of, and we'll try to do it again tomorrow, I think.

Q. Leylah and Bianca, what do you see from them, a young team, made a bit of a run here in the doubles, what did you see from them throughout the tournament, and then today especially?

GABRIELA DABROWSKI: Are they going to play together more? Oh, okay, yeah. Sorry, I thought Bianca was in college, but I could be wrong. Yeah, I mean, they are very fiery, they take the ball really early, so it doesn't lend a lot of time for opponents to make decisions on their own time, so that makes it tricky to play against. I think we knew that going into today, so that helped us be ready for it.

Yeah, they have good energy between them, obviously as sisters I think you would hope for that, right (smiling), but, yeah, I think also probably this week they had a bit of a surprise factor, I don't think too many people in the tournament would have seen Bianca play too many matches. Yeah, that definitely, that can definitely help you have good results when people just don't know what to expect exactly. Yeah, they did great.

Q. Looking back at your games, are there any particular plays that you're going to be making tomorrow, knowing that your opponents are there and they're pretty strong as well, so anything that you will keep in mind for tomorrow's game and takeaways from this game?

ERIN ROUTLIFFE: Yeah, I think today, like we said before, we were a little more clinical, more first serves and first touches on the ball, so I think that's what we always try to do, no matter who we play.

We played this team recently at Wimbledon, but obviously on a different surface, so we'll probably go back to those notes and that match maybe a little bit to see what gave us success. Yeah, I think we'll just try to enjoy the moment. You don't get to play a final often, so we're really going to enjoy that, and we'll have the crowd for us, so that will be really nice.