Ottawa-born tennis star Gabriela Dabrowski will be receiving the Key to the City of Ottawa Thursday in recognition of her success on the court. Dabrowski began playing tennis at a local park at the age of seven, after agreeing to play with friends. “Upon showing natural aptitude, Gaby started lessons that year at the Ottawa Athletic Club, under the tutelage of coach Tony Milo. Within a year, Gaby was winning local tournaments, followed quickly by impressive results at the Provincial, National and International levels,” the City of Ottawa said in a news release. The three-time Grand Slam champion also has an Olympic bronze medal for mixed doubles at the 2024 Paris games alongside fellow Canadian Félix Auger-Aliassime. Most recently, she reached the women’s doubles quarterfinal at Wimbledon earlier this month with partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand. Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal, Dabrowski said getting the Key to the City is truly an honour. “I know that the Key to the City has a lot of historical weight to it and so to be awarded this recognition is really, really special,” she said. Dabrowski said she started playing tennis in Ottawa’s Blossom Park neighborhood. “A man came up to me at the park and he asked me where I took lessons and I thought I don’t really know what he’s talking about,” she said. “My dad came the next day, and the man was there, and he had a daughter, and he was curious about where I was taking lessons because he wanted to put her in the same program. My dad and him got chatting and he learned I wasn’t taking lessons, that I was just playing for fun.” She said she enrolled in lessons that fall, at seven years old, starting once a week. “Within a few months, I joined the kids’ clinic, learning how to play, and then things just shot up from there and got very intense very quickly, playing tournaments most weekends. A lot of driving around to Montreal, Toronto and Kingston.” She began competing internationally as a teenager and officially became a professional at 19. “It’s been a pretty wild ride. I’m very grateful to occasionally be really good at what I do. I work really hard at mastering the craft and doubles and mixed doubles has allowed me to play the biggest tournaments in the world.” Late last year, Dabrowski revealed that she had undergone surgeries and treatments for breast cancer in between tournaments, including the Olympics. “It was a pretty crazy journey to receive that diagnosis and then come back to the sport and then surprisingly do really well and be able to create some beautiful memories with some great partners along the way and have a great team surrounding me. It’s been a pretty special year and a few months, for sure,” she said. The 33-year-old Dabrowski says the doubles game is not as physically hard as the singles game, but she intends to keep playing. “Doubles lends itself to definitely having more career longevity on the physical side of things, but at the same time, we’re still playing a full schedule, training hard, there’s a lot of travel involved and still a lot of stress. From a mental standpoint, it’s maybe still a difficult decision on how long you want to stay in the sport,” she said. Dabrowski says she’s been dealing with a rib issue off and on since February that caused her to miss the French Open, but she believes she’s now on the mend. She says she will be playing in the National Bank Open in Montreal next week and she hopes to end the year playing a full schedule and aims to qualify for the 2025 WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with her partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand. “That will be our mission for the next couple of months.” Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe will give Dabrowski the Key to the City Thursday evening at Ottawa City Hall.
