Dabrowski, Stefani capture Wuhan doubles crown, third title in a row
Top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani won the Dongfeng • Voyah Wuhan Open doubles title with a straight-sets victory over third seeds and defending champions Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova.
In Sunday's final, Dabrowski and Stefani broke early in the first set to build a 4-1 lead before Hunter and Siniakova fought back to level the score. The top seeds broke again in the 12th game to take the set 7-5. They broke twice again in the second set while surrendering their serve once to complete a 7-5, 6-4 victory in 1 hour, 32 minutes.
"I think matches like this are decided in a few moments and a couple of points, and we could have been set down in the first set," Stefani said in the post-match press conference. "I think we had a deuce point and Storm missed a backhand and we made a move. And if that goes over, maybe we lose that set, and then the story is different. And same in the second, I thought we had a strong start. And with teams like this, you have to be on the whole time, or at least trying to do the right things and the good things. Maybe we lost a couple of opportunities to close the gap before, but also we gave ourselves a chance to stay in that next game where we're still four or five, we're still on serve, having opportunities to break in almost every game, we could put ourselves in a position to still win the match in that game, and that's what happened. I think I'm happy about how we finish in two sets. A really great team and tough, tough opponents."
Showtime doubles ⭐️ Gabriela Dabrowski & @Luisa__Stefani were electric in their Wuhan final! #dongfengvoyahwuhanopen https://t.co/S7IKDUYMRl
— wta (@WTA) October 18, 2026
The title was the pair's sixth of the season, following their triumphs in Dubai, Strasbourg, Eastbourne, Sao Paulo and Beijing last week. It was their eighth title overall as a team and their third title in a row. The duo improved its career tour-level win-loss record to 79-19.
For Dabrowski, it was her 26th career doubles title on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz and eighth at the WTA 1000 level. Stefani claimed her 19th career tour-level doubles title and sixth at the WTA 1000 level. The pair have also qualified for the season-ending WTA Finals to be held in Indian Wells next month.
"I think for us as a team, it's always really important to push the back ends of draws, and we're always trying to play a relatively full schedule, but also a smart schedule," Dabrowski told the media when asked to reflect on their season. "The theme is probably just maintaining what our coach likes to call relentlessness. That's always been our goal this whole season, and we've done a pretty good job of that. I'm really pleased with where we are and where our level is. I think we're doing a lot of the right things, whether it's in practice or matches. So it's really nice to see it pay off in results consistently throughout the season. But we still have a few more weeks to go, so we're not done yet. And we have more to learn and more growth to do. So, very grateful for these last couple of weeks, but we certainly have our eyes still on a few more events."
For Siniakova and Hunter, this was their ninth tour-level event as a team. They have won two titles together - at the WTA 1000 event in Dubai in 2024 and in Wuhan in 2025 - and now have a 30-6 career win-loss record as a pair.
