Andreeva, Anisimova set Dubai quarterfinal meeting after belated starts

Defending champion Mirra Andreeva and No. 2 seed Amanda Anisimova will meet in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships quarterfinals after shaking off the rust to get their campaigns off to belated starts. Their third-round matches on Wednesday were their first of the week; Anisimova defeated wild card Janice Tjen 6-1, 6-3, and Andreeva came through a contest that featured 13 breaks of serve to hold off Jaqueline Cristian 7-5, 6-3.

Dubai: Scores |  Draws | Order of play 

Andreeva and Anisimova had both received first-round byes and then second-round walkovers after Daria Kasatkina and Barbora Krejcikova withdrew due to injury. The pair had also both exited Doha early last week -- Anisimova was forced to retire due to illness against Karolina Pliskova in the second round, while Andreeva fell from match point up to Victoria Mboko in the third round.

Andreeva and Anisimova have only met once before on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. Eleven months ago, Anisimova ended Andreeva's 13-match winning streak 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-3 in the Miami third round.

Andreeva 'really far from perfect today'

After committing 31 unforced errors, including seven double faults -- three of which came as she failed to serve out the first set at 5-4 -- Andreeva was honest about her level.

"Honestly, I feel my game was really far from perfect today," she said in her on-court interview. "I'm just happy I could walk away from the court as a winner. It was really tough to play here today, I really struggled with conditions.

"I'm just trying to force myself to freaking hit the ball. I was tense, I was nervous, I cared a lot about every single point that I was playing and sometimes I was really scared to miss. Inside of myself, I was saying, 'Mirra, you just have to dig deep and force yourself to hit the ball, otherwise she's going to take advantage of it and she's just going to go for her shots.'"

Throughout the match, Andreeva and Cristian played out the same recurring pattern. Andreeva played her best, most focused points on return, and repeatedly went up a break -- only to hand the lead back with a flurry of double faults and errant groundstrokes. But despite her up-and-down form, the 18-year-old locked in at the very end of each set. Cristian, meanwhile, will rue the netted drive volley on her point to hold for 3-3 in the second set, and the consecutive netted backhands that conceded that break.

Andreeva's famous notebook -- which went viral at Indian Wells last year as the camera caught her flicking through pages of comments on each of her opponents -- came to her aid again.

"After I didn't serve for the [first] set, I said, 'I broke her once, broke her twice,' -- I just tried to do it again," she said. "When I went to serve for the set for a second time, I read my notebook. I just really tried to focus on all the things I have to focus on, all the things I wrote for myself, and it worked."

It's been an unusual week for Andreeva -- this is the first time she's played a tournament as defending champion, and the second time she's received a walkover in her opening match. (The last time was at Montreal last year, where Bianca Andreescu withdrew injured from their second round; Andreeva lost to McCartney Kessler in the third round.)

The latter, she felt, was more responsible for her fluctuating level. She had been looking forward to embracing her status as defending champion, and enjoyed seeing the photographs of previous winners as she'd walked through the corridor on to Center Court. Afterwards, Andreeva also said that she had felt "so much more motivation than for any other tournament."

As such, her nerves had taken her by surprise. She attributed her service issues to the walkover from Kasatkina breaking her tournament rhythm slightly -- particularly in comparison to Cristian, who had played three sets already in Dubai.

But with a match under her belt, Andreeva isn't worried about similar problems against Anisimova. The American only needed 70 minutes to defeat Tjen, but in an otherwise straightforward contest had to navigate wobbles at the end of each set -- she had to save three break points in the final game of the first set, and failed to serve out the match at her first opportunity.

"Tomorrow is probably going to be better, because I'm going to get into the rhythm," Andreeva said. "I'm looking forward to getting that revenge!"