Paris, France) – It didn’t work out for São Paulo’s Luisa Stefani and Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski, who said goodbye to doubles at Roland Garros on Monday in the round of 16. The executioners of the 8th seed were the Canadian Leylah Fernandez and the American Taylor Townsend, who imposed themselves in a difficult match, scoring partials of 6/4, 4/6 and 6/2, after 2:09 of dispute.

Stefani will now have a deadline to recover and return to the court in around two hours to seek the mixed doubles semi-final, alongside Rio Grande do Sul’s Rafael Matos. The Australian Open champions will face Japan’s Miyu Kato and Germany’s Tim Puetz.

Either way, it was Stefani’s third-best Grand Slam campaign, surpassed by quarter-finals and semi-finals already achieved at the US Open. The only tournament he has yet to win is Wimbledon.

Currently number 23 in the rankings, Stefani has a chance to return to the top 20 with the campaign in Paris, which will be his highest ranking since returning to the court. After the accident that took her away from the circuit in September 2021, the Brazilian finished ninth.

Opportunities in the first set
Stefani and Dabrowski even took the lead in the first set, scored a break in the opener and opened 2/0 on the scoreboard. Only the rivals recovered and drew 3/3. The São Paulo and Canada team reached 4/3 and served, after another break, but after that only Fernandez and Townsend won three games in a row, entitled to two breaks, and thus won the first set.

The second set was also tied, again with the Brazilian and Canadian taking the lead with a break in game five, only to go 4/2. Fernandez and Townsend again looked for the tie to score 4/4, but this time Stefani and Dabrowski stopped the rivals’ reaction, scored another break in the ninth and then served to level the game, closing the third set point they had.

Lefties dominate final set
After Luisa and Gabi recovered, the opponents did very well at the start of the third set, winning eight of the first nine points and starting to score 3/0 over the Brazilian and the Canadian, who even saved a break point in the fourth to avoid a bigger stampede. Fernandez and Townsend defined the game in a three-break streak between games six and eight, two for and one against.

Tenth favorites, the Canadian and the American still do not know who will face them in the quarter-finals. They await the winners of the duel which brings together on one side the duo of the house formed by Alizé Cornet and Diane Parry and on the other the 14th seed, the Taiwanese Latisha Chan and Hao-Ching Chan.