MADRID — At the end of the 2025 season on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, Cristina Bucsa’s run to her first career tour-level final at Hong Kong in October had put her on the doorstep of a big breakthrough.<\/p>\n
With the second-place finish, where she lost to World No. 10 Victoria Mboko, as well as a semifinal run at a 125 event in Limoges, France, Bucsa moved from No. 68 to No. 50 in the PIF WTA Rankings ahead of her 2026 season start in Brisbane. Results-wise, the Australian and Middle East swings were difficult for Bucsa, advancing no further than the second round in any event that pushed her back outside the top 60.<\/p>\n
But come the Sunshine swing with a change of scenery to M\u00e9rida, Mexico, the Moldova-born Spaniard found her breakthrough, first-career singles tour-level championship at the M\u00e9rida Open, becoming Spain’s No. 1 WTA singles player.<\/p>\n
Bucsa, who also earned for first top 10 victory over Jasmine Paolini at the tournament, rose to World No. 31, before cracking the top 30 a week later.<\/p>\n
“It was my first 500 tournament win in singles, so very happy, very proud of myself and I was working that week and that was a big achievement,” said Bucsa — who also won the doubles title in M\u00e9rida — in an interview with wtatennis.com.<\/p>\n
Champions Reel: How Cristina Bucsa won Merida 2026<\/p>\n
In Madrid, she’ll have a bye into the second round, just the second time at a WTA 1000 event as she did in Miami. She’s poised to begin her clay season on a high note, after fully recovering from a right-hip injury that forced her to retire from her opening match in Miami vs. Yuliia Starodubtseva.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Check out more from wtatennis.com’s conversation with Bucsa ahead of her return to the Mutua Madrid Open:<\/p>\n
With your rise into the top 30, you have become Spain’s No. 1 ranked WTA singles player. Representing a country with such strong history of players, can you share your thoughts on becoming the top ranked player in Spain?<\/p>\n
It’s always an honor to be the first-seeded tennis player in Spain. It means a lot to me and also so much warm feeling and also support from the crowd, I think will be special here in Madrid.<\/p>\n
We’re now in Madrid Can you talk about your excitement to be playing like your own tournament? <\/p>\n
I mean, always, it’s gonna be exciting. But, you know, after my injury, I’m coming back more stronger because I had three or four weeks off being at home.<\/p>\n
That was great work for me, but I did it so — I hadn\u2019t [seen] my mom, like in six months or something like that. She gave me a lot of energy. I’m very excited and very confident to be here in Madrid and to play my first clay tournament.<\/p>\n
You mentioned the injury you picked up in Miami. How was the recovery from that, and how are you feeling? <\/p>\n
Very well. I did some great treatment and recovered at 100%, I’m ready for Madrid.<\/p>\n
Circling back to spending time with your mom. What did you do together during your time off and is she going to come see you play?<\/p>\n
We live in Cantabria, this province. We went to the beach, to mountain, very different locations where we can spend their time together.<\/p>\n
She’s here. She took some holidays. And yeah, she’s gonna be here for two weeks.<\/p>\n
Now the tour is in outdoor clay for a good stretch between Madrid and Roland Garros. I’m curious,\u00a0is clay your favorite surface? <\/p>\n
No, it’s grass [laughing].<\/p>\n
Interesting. Adjusting to the clay, obviously, it’s a very unique surface. What do you think you need to adjust to it regarding your game? <\/p>\n
It’s about to be a little more consistent with the game when I’m playing. Also, I use more my drop shots right here. Here in Madrid, there is a little bit of altitude, so I can use my serve and volley as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID — At the end of the 2025 season on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, Cristina Bucsa’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,483],"class_list":{"0":"post-9586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-spain","9":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}