Tennis
2026-02-18 - Janice Tjen vs Amanda Anisimova
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis : WTA 1000 Dubai Second Round
Wednesday 18th February 2025 - Scheduled 11am
7am (British Time)
Preview
There are going to be questions about the WTA Tour calendar when scheduling consecutive 1000 events on back to back weeks in the Middle East. While the tournament in Doha largely went as planned, there have been a huge number of withdrawals and mid-match retirements here in Dubai as we only get into the Third Round.
Something will have to change, although neither Doha nor Dubai are going to want to hear that the tournaments they run are being downgraded- both are ATP 500 events rather WTA 1000, but even that may not be enough to appease them and a new Council will come together and see how they can help.
Amanda Anisimova has been one of the beneficiaries of a walkover in the Second Round, which means she has only played one match since the Australian Open. Even that match ended with a mid-match retirement when Anisimova had to pull out with an illness, but she has stated she is feeling better and a couple more days of recovery can only help.
This is an important week for Amanda Anisimova who won the title in Doha last year, but who was not able to defend those World Ranking Points last week.
There is some room for improvement in the early season form, but Anisimova is very comfortable on the hard courts and she can get the better of Janice Tjen.
The 23 year old enters the tournament in Dubai under a new career-high World Ranking of Number 46 and this season offers Janice Tjen a big opportunity to really build on that mark. Improving the World Ranking means being able to enter bigger tournaments and Janice Tjen showed how comfortable she is on the hard courts with a huge amount of wins on the surface in 2025.
Of course it should be noted that those were against players of a lower level than what she will be facing at the tournaments she will now be entering and a 5-4 record over the last six weeks suggests this is something of a learning curve. Janice Tjen has won two matches here, which will help the confidence, but she has yet to really get to grips with the return of serve at this level.
The Indonesian player has struggled against the very best players on the Tour and that has led to two straight-forward losses to top 20 Ranked opponents. In those two losses, Janice Tjen has not only struggled to protect the second serve, but she has won just 23% of return points played and someone like Amanda Anisimova can put her under enough pressure to pick up the Breaks of serve needed to cover this spread.
Prediction
It has not been the tournament the organisers would have been hoping for with the amount of withdrawals taking place throughout the event.
They will certainly be hoping for more fortune to round out the event and the 2025 Doha Champion can win her first match in Dubai 2026 having been given a walkover through to the Third Round after the First Round Bye.
The Pick :
Janice Tjen 0-2 Amanda Anisimova
