After a mixed clay-court swing, all eyes will be on how Emma Raducanu fares on the grass courts this summer.
Up to world No 37 in the WTA Rankings, the Brit is in the hunt to be seeded at Wimbledon, and a strong start to her grass swing at the Queen’s Club Championships could be crucial.
Raducanu has already taken to court at the WTA 500 event, winning an opening-round doubles match alongside Katie Boulter on Monday.
However, her singles campaign gets underway on Tuesday, with the Brit up against Spanish star Cristina Bucsa.
Bucsa’s career highlights
Born in Moldova in 1998, Bucsa began representing Spain in 2015, after moving to the country as a young child.
Her career highlight came when representing her country at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, winning a women’s doubles bronze medal alongside Sara Sorribes Tormo.
Alongside Sorribes Tormo, she also won the Madrid Open doubles title in 2024, and has won six WTA Tour doubles titles in total.
In singles, the 27-year-old is yet to reach a WTA Tour final, with the biggest title of her career coming at the WTA 125 Open de Limoges in 2023, defeating Elsa Jacquemot in the final.
The Spaniard has also won a further four ITF titles and has a career-high ranking of world No 56, set in January 2024.
Bucsa has reached the second round of all four majors, though her best Grand Slam run came at the 2023 Australian Open.
She came through qualifying and then beat both Eva Lys and Bianca Andreescu, before falling to top seed and world No 1 Iga Swiatek.
2025 season
Recent months have been difficult for Bucsa, who is down at 112th in the WTA Rankings, and has a rather middling 15-16 record for the season.
Including qualifying matches, the Spaniard has not won more than three matches in a row at any point this season, and has failed to make it past the round of 16 at any tournament.
Before Queen’s, Bucsa had not won a match since her opening-round qualifying win at the Madrid Open, going on to lose five straight matches.
After a defeat to Mirra Andreeva at the French Open, she bounced back with a successful qualifying campaign at the new WTA 500 event in south west London.
Seeded seventh, Bucsa beat British players Alice Gillan and Lily Miyazaki to reach the main draw, and will now take on Raducanu.
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Head-to-head
Bucsa may have struggled at points in 2025, but she does have a win over Raducanu to her name.
The Spaniard beat Raducanu 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 in a match that lasted over three hours at the Singapore Open back in February, a match that was seen as a disappointing loss for the Brit at the time.
However, the world No 37 has more experience than Bucsa on grass courts and will enter this contest as the pre-match favourite.
The winner will face seventh seed Barbora Krejcikova or Rebecca Sramkova in the second round.
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