On one of the most crucial points during the first set of their US Open women’s doubles championship match, the color-coordinated duo of Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe — from white visors to white tops to pink skirts and white shoes — showed their inexperience as a team, and did so in the most embarrassing way possible.

An easy overhead was for the taking at 4-4, 40-40, a chance to set up game point, when both Routliffe, coming a couple of steps forward, and Dabrowski, backpedaling from the net, bumped into each other while both went for an overhead smash. While the fluffed shot, which Dabrowski’s racquet contacted, landed in, she and Routliffe eventually lost the point and stared at a break point against.

“We crash into each other and we still made it,” a joking Routliffe said after the match. “It wasn't a great shot, but it obviously went in.”

The gaffe was a footnote — with Dabrowski and Routliffe eventually winning that game — embedded at the bottom of the story with a surprising headline: Dabrowski and Routfille, partners for all of one month, are the 2023 US Open women’s doubles champions.

Along with being unexpected, the win was also historic: Dabrowski became the first Canadian woman to win a women’s doubles title at any Grand Slam event, while Routliffe became the first player representing New Zealand to win a Grand Slam title since Judy Connor-Chaloner won the women’s doubles title at the Australian Open in 1979.

Over the month that the pair have been together, starting with the 1000-level event in Montreal, the two have bonded so well together that, after their first-round win here in Flushing Meadows, Dabrowski invited Routliffe, who was without a clothing sponsor, to wear the same brand of athletic wear that the Canadian was sporting.