The trick is to set the location of the polaraxes manually. Not nice but it works.
t = tiledlayout(2,1);
nexttile;
plot(rand(10),rand(10))
plax = polaraxes(t);
plax. Layout.Tile = 2; % tile location
plax.RLim = [0;2];
plax.RDir = 'reverse';
hold on
polarplot(plax, rand(10),rand(10));
