The Russian Vera Zvonareva and the German Laura Siegemund were defeated in the final of the US Open women’s doubles tournament. They lost to Gabriela Dabrowski (Canada) and Erin Routliffe (New Zealand) 6:7 (9:11), 3:6.
Surprisingly, the duo of Dabrowski and Rutliff was formed very recently, just last month. They didn’t know each other before deciding to team up on the court. We started with warm-ups in Montreal and Cincinnati, where we reached the second round. And in Cleveland they were semifinalists.
Zvonareva and Siegemund, who have been playing successfully together for a long time, had an uneven performance in the North American tournaments preceding the Grand Slam in New York. In Montreal and Cincinnati the game did not go well, but in Washington the Russian and the German took the title. In the final they beat Alexa Guarachi (Chile) and Monica Niculescu (Romania) 6:4, 6:4.
Among the major joint titles between Zvonareva and Siegemund is the 2020 US Open trophy.
Recall that Vera also celebrated her victory in the Grand Slam tournaments at the 2006 United States Open together with the Frenchman Nathalie Dechy and at the 2012 Australian Open together with her compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova. Zvonareva also won two mixed doubles titles: at the 2004 US Open with American Bob Bryan and at the 2006 Wimbledon with Andy Rahm of Israel.
In total, the 39-year-old Russian has 13 victories in doubles tournaments and the 35-year-old German has 11.
Zvonareva is the former second racket in the world in singles (highest position in 2010) and bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where our girls took the entire podium.
Vera took a break from her career: she got married and gave birth to a daughter, Evelina, in 2016.
