Sorana Cirstea and Kaja Juvan will be among those in first round action at the WTA Austin Open 2025 on Tuesday, February 25. Here’s the preview, predictions and tips for these matches from Austin.
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Sorana Cirstea v Laura Siegemund Preview
Head-to-Head: There have been three previous meetings between these two players Cirstea leading 2-1. Cirstea had won their last meeting at the 2022 US Open.
Sorana Cirstea hadn’t had the greatest start to the season and she managed to win just one round from the four tournaments she participated in. That sole win came against Arantxa Rus, a player who has been struggling to make things happen on court anyway.
Which is why when Cirstea shocked Daria Kasatkina in the first round of the WTA Dubai and then overcame a top-10 player in Emma Navarro to make the quarterfinals, fans were rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
The Romanian will look to continue in the same vein in this tournament too and she begins her campaign against the 83rd-ranked Laura Siegemund.
Siegemund has herself had a bit of a mixed season, losing two of her three United Cup matches, failing to qualify for the Adelaide International and then falling out before making the main draw of the Qatar Open too.
Where she has managed a performance of note was at the Australian Open, making the third round there.
In doing so she had shocked Qinwen Zheng in round two despite starting out an 11/1 underdog there. She will hope to take the same form into this one.
Cirstea v Siegemund prediction: Three sets in the match: 6/5
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Kaja Juvan v Ena Shibahara Preview
Head-to-Head: This will be the first meeting between Juvan and Shibahara.
Once ranked just outside the top 50, Kaja Juvan has not had a lot of tennis under her belt since the end of the 2023 season because of personal reasons. As a result Juvan has fallen to 1106th in the world.
What that’s meant is that Juvan has now been forced to play in qualifiers of events like this one to make it to the WTA tournament main draws. Juvan, who had featured in only two ITF circuit events before this tournament, won a couple of qualifiers here to enter round one.
And she has the 148th-ranked Ena Shibahara as her opening round opponent. Shibahara’s career-best ranking of 148th suggests she is still some away from her best and while she might be facing off against someone outside of the top 1000 she won’t start a complete favourite.
In fact nothing to choose between these two with a three-setter looking a distinct possibility.
Juvan v Shibahara prediction: Three sets in the match: 6/5
Greet Minnen v Wei Sijia Preview
Head-to-Head: This will be their first meeting.
Greet Minnen had made the second round of the Auckland Open in what was her first tournament of the season and she followed up with a similar showing in Hobart.
Since then, however, Minnen has won no main draw matches.
Sijia was forced to go through the qualifiers to make it to the main draw here, something she has had to do in every tournament at this level this year.
A runner-up at the Canberra ITF tournament at the start of the year, Sijia was knocked out in the first round at both, Singapore Open and Australian Open but will start off with some more confidence than her opponent.
Minnen v Sija prediction: Minnen to win: 1/1
