World number 32 Elise Mertens will take on the 27th-ranked Leylah Fernandez in the first round of the 2025 WTA Dubai Tennis Championships which will be played on Sunday, February 16. Get all the Elise Mertens v Leylah Fernandez predictions, betting tips and odds for this encounter in the section below.
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Elise Mertens v Leylah Fernandez Head to Head
There have been two previous matches between these two players and both have won one apiece. Mertens made it 1-0 with a victory at the 2021 Australian Open while Fernandez levelled it off at Guadalajara in 2023.
Mertens in the Form of Her Life
Elise Mertens has been around on the tour for years now having first played a WTA tournament in 2015. Since then Mertens had made the final of WTA events on 15 occasions and won nine titles.
The last two of those 15 came in 2025 itself – one in Hobart where she lost to McCartney Kessler and another in Singapore where she defeated Ann Li in the title-decider.
That gives Mertens a win-loss record of 12-3 for the season with the third of those losses having come at the hands of Ekaterina Alexandrova in Doha just preceding this competition.
The big question here is if Mertens can get that same form over to the bigger events like WTA1000s or Grand Slams, having lost in the second round at the Australian Open and third round in Doha.
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Fernandez Hoping to Convert Good Starts
Leylah Fernandez has been having decent starts to competitions this season but has been unable to go deep into it.
From finishing the United Cup with a win and a loss and losing in the first round at the Adelaide International after starting out as a qualifier, the Canadian player looks to have turned things around a tad.
She made the third round of the Australian Open and it needed the might of Cori Gauff to take her out. This was followed by a quarterfinal appearance at the Abu Dhabi Open too and this time around it was another American, Ashlyn Krueger who got the better of her.
And more recently, Fernandez’s run in Doha was ended in the third round too, as for the third time in a row she went down to an American – Amanda Anisimova.
This time around it’s an in-form Belgian she is up against.
Mertens v Fernandez Prediction
Despite the close nature of this rivalry and Fernandez’s higher rank, we will have to back Mertens to overcome her opponent here given her superlative form.
Mertens v Fernandez Tips
- Mertens to win: 4/5
