Tennis
2026-02-25 - Daniil Medvedev vs Stan Wawrinka
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis : ATP 500 Dubai Second Round
Wednesday 25th February 2026 - Scheduled 2pm
10am (British Time)
Preview
A crushing win in the First Round has moved Daniil Medvedev into a match with a veteran having one last hurrah on the Tour.
As far as we know, Stan Wawrinka is going to be retiring at the end of the 2026 season, even if some are speculating that he may choose to play on if he can maintain the current levels being produced. He has been able to rejoin the top 100 of the World Rankings and Wawrinka had little issue in coming through his own First Round match, although the level of opponent picks up considerably on Wednesday.
The older player has been relying very much on the strong serving to put himself in a position to win matches, but Stan Wawrinka has found it very difficult on the return. That has led to plenty of defeats in 2026, but he is outperforming expectation levels and Stan Wawrinka has a 2-3 record on the hard courts when only considering matches played against top 100 Ranked opponents.
Daniil Medvedev has been struggling to back up his own serve as effectively as he will need if he is going to win big titles, but there has been little wrong with the return.
In the First Round, Medvedev broken the Juncheng Shang serve four times and ended up producing a comfortable win over Stan Wawrinka when these two last faced one another on the Tour in Rotterdam in February 2025.
The line is a dangerous one if Stan Wawrinka continues to serve as well as he has been in the opening weeks of the season.
However, you do have to feel that Daniil Medvedev can force his way into enough rallies to eventually create the Break Points needed to have a chance of covering and he can wear down the veteran over the course of a couple of hours on the court in Dubai.
Prediction
Lay the games here with the higher Ranked player.
The Pick :
Daniil Medvedev 2-0 Stan Wawrinka
