DUBAI—Amanda Anisimova had no time to celebrate winning the biggest title of her career last weekend. The American was back on court less than 48 hours after winning the Qatar TotalEnergies Open and discussed the tricky scheduling that contributed to her 6-2, 6-3 defeat to McCartney Kessler at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
“Definitely a little scary to go and play after such a quick turnaround,” she said in her post-match press conference. “Not testing out the conditions and putting your body through that, it’s like very vulnerable.”
The 23-year-old stormed to her first WTA 1000 title on Saturday, defeating Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets to secure a Top 20 debut this week. But the pressure of back-to-back 1000-level tournaments had Anisimova, whose pre-Doha ranking prevented her from obtaining a first-round bye, scrambling to be ready in time to compete on Monday afternoon.
“With the schedule they have on us, it’s tough,” she said. “You get fined. Then your ranking gets affected if you skip the big tournaments. We don’t get much of a choice when it comes to that. Knowing that in my mind, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to try to play and do the best that I can. Hopefully I can get more used to that.’”
