Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Felix Auger-Aliassime won the mixed doubles tennis bronze medal at the Paris Olympics on Friday with a 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands.
Ottawa’s Dabrowski and Montreal’s Auger-Aliassime won the last two points of the second-set tiebreaker on return, and clinched the medal when Dabrowski forced a Schuurs error on match point to end the meeting in 93 minutes.
The Canadians appeared to be coasting to victory on the clay courts of Roland Garros and led 4-2 in the second set, but the Dutch tandem held in the seventh game, then came down from a 40-15 deficit to score a lifesaving break to tie the set 4-4.
The Canadians recovered and took an early 3-0 lead in the second set tiebreaker. After Schuurs and Koolhof cut the lead to one with two points on serve, the Canadians answered with four straight points to reach the podium.
WATCH l Dabrowski, Auger-Aliassime end Canada’s Olympic tennis medal drought:
Felix Auger-Aliassime and Gaby Dabrowski teamed up to defeat the Netherland’s Wesley Koolhof and Demi Schuurs 6-3, 7-6(2) to claim the Olympic bronze medal in mixed doubles tennis.
Auger-Aliassime and Dabrowski started strong, converting the only break point on offer in the first set to take a 3-1 lead and then serving to love in the final game.
The Canadians scored two early breaks to go up 3-0 in the second set but, backed by a vocal contingent of supporters on Court Suzanne Lenglen, Schuurs and Koolhof got those breaks back to force the tiebreaker.
Canada’s only other Olympic tennis medal came in 2000, when Daniel Nestor and Sébastien Lareau beat the heavily-favoured Australian duo of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde in the men’s doubles final at the Sydney Games.
Auger-Aliassime has a chance to add to that when he plays for men’s singles bronze on Saturday. The Canadian missed out on a chance to play for gold after losing 6-1, 6-1 to Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz in a semifinal earlier Friday.
WATCH l Auger-Aliassime falls to Alcaraz in Olympic semifinal:
Number two seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain defeated Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-1 in the Olympic semifinals.
Alcaraz, the second seed in Paris, continued his dominant form on the clay courts of Roland Garros after winning the French Open title there earlier this year.
The Spaniard didn’t face break point and converted five of his nine break chances while cruising to victory in 75 minutes.
Alcaraz will face the winner of a semifinal match between top seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia and No. 11 Lorenzo Musetti for gold. Auger-Aliassime will face the loser of that match for bronze, with live coverage on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Olympics app and CBC Gem.
Swiatek earnes women’s bronze
Iga Swiatek dabbed at her eyes with a white towel while sitting on her sideline chair at the 2024 Olympics after a lickety-split, clean-as-can-be win Friday that earned a bronze for Poland’s first tennis medal at any Summer Games.
Sure, she beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-1 in 59 minutes on Friday, but make no mistake: These were not purely tears of joy.
They were, at least in part, remnants of the disappointment — devastation, really — the No. 1-ranked Swiatek felt after a poor performance a day prior cost her a shot at what she really wanted, what she kind of figured she would head home with: gold. She’s a perfectionist, for one thing, and someone who, frankly, rarely loses anywhere, least of all on the red clay at Roland Garros, the site of her four French Open titles and home to Olympic tennis this year.
“After the match, I was pretty confused, because I still feel like I lost yesterday, and that was kind of a huge loss,” Swiatek said. “On the other hand, I won today ΓǪ so I should be proud of that. There’s like a lot of mixed emotions and still is.”
Swiatek played much more cleanly than she did Thursday in a straight-set semifinal loss to Zheng Qinwen. That result ended Swiatek’s 25-match unbeaten streak at Roland Garros, which includes three championships in a row at the French Open.
Zheng faces Donna Vekic in the women’s final on Saturday.