Ottawa's Gabriela Dabrowski and her New Zealand partner Erin Routliffe lost 6-4, 7-6 (3) to Czech Katerina Siniakova and American Taylor Townsend at the WTA Finals on Tuesday.
The No. 3 seeds led 5-2 in the second set before Siniakova and Townsend rallied.
Routliffe was unable to serve the set back at 5-3 as Townsend's winner produced a key break.
Townsend then converted her first match point, winning her serve in the ensuing tiebreaker.
Dabrowski and Routliffe defeated the same pair in last year's WTA Finals match and again in the US Open finals this year.
The victory leveled the score between the two teams with two wins each.
“It's always hard to lose to the same team and this is so close – at the US Open it was just a break in every set,” Townsend said in an on-court interview. “We've been working really hard the last few days in training. We took all the data from the games we've played before and went out there and just wanted to execute the game plan.”
The winners secured another key break to finish the first set 3–3. Townsend's cross, followed by Siniakova's winning volley, broke Dombrowski's serve and put the No. 2 seed in control.
Townsend was the only server not to break in the match as she and Siniakova improved to 2-0 in group play.
Dabrowski and Routliffe, now 1-1, will face Timea Babos of Hungary and Luisa Stefani of Brazil in the final match of the round-robin tournament.
