WIMBLEDON — The first time Cristina Bucsa played at Wimbledon, she showed up without any shoes.
This was 2019, and a month earlier her attempt to prepare for her grass-court debut had gone wrong. Bucsa had tried to order grass shoes online — “but when I arrived home, I just received a pair of glasses,” she recalled this week. “It was terrible. We went to Decathlon and bought golf shoes, just in case.”
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At that point, Bucsa was so far outside the qualifying cut that she didn’t think it would matter. But the week before qualifying began, as she was driving home from an ITF tournament in Portugal, she found out she had squeaked in at the last minute. There was no time to do anything but pack the gear she already had — including those golf shoes, which turned out to be entirely unsuitable.
Fortunately, Bucsa found a shop near Wimbledon that sold grass-court shoes. Unfortunately, the only pair they had were two sizes too big. She stuffed them with extra socks, made her way to Roehampton, and in those oversized shoes, came back to beat Whitney Osuigwe 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in her opening match.
Six years on, Bucsa feels more at home here. On Wednesday, she needed only 70 minutes to upset No. 22 seed and 2024 semifinalist Donna Vekic 6-1, 6-3 — her sixth career Top 30 win — to advance to the third round for the first time. She’ll next face lucky loser Solana Sierra, with a fourth-round Grand Slam debut at stake for both.
Bucsa, who struck 21 winners to Vekic’s 13, said afterward, “Everything was flowing.”
Unlike in 2019, Bucsa was also kitted out impeccably. Since the end of last year, she’s worked with the Singapore-based clothing brand Country Club by Dasha, which was founded by former player Dasha Berezhnaya and which specializes in Asian-influenced athletic wear. This tallies with Bucsa’s own interests — a fan of both hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and K-pop, she’s currently studying the Korean language.
“I met Dasha last year in Hong Kong — she’s a lovely person,” Bucsa said. “The brand is very cool, so elegant.”
Bucsa’s collaboration with Country Club by Dasha is also significant because it’s her first clothing sponsorship. Despite competing in Grand Slam main draws since 2021 and cracking the Top 100 at the start of 2023, the 27-year-old has spent most of her career without any apparel or equipment sponsorships, instead buying all her gear off the shelf (which explains that early shoe mishap).
Partly, this is down to her determination to do things her own way.
Bucsa is an unusual professional athlete in 2025 in that she is — and has always been — a social media holdout. She reluctantly has a Facebook account in order to arrange doubles with fellow players but has no desire to join Instagram, TikTok or any other platform.
“I don’t have time,” she said. “I’m working so hard — practicing, physical workouts, working with my psychologist. Often I’ve only got one hour left during the day — and that one hour, I want to give it to myself, I want to take care of myself.”
Social media, Bucsa feels, is the opposite of self-care. In her spare time, she prefers to study psychology, biology and “all the parts that you don’t see” in sport. She’s also a karate blue belt, with her sights set on earning a black belt one day.
Refusing to play the online game may have cost her some sponsorship opportunities, but that’s what made her collaboration with Country Club by Dasha feel genuine. Berezhnaya reached out simply because she loved watching Bucsa play.
“I really like Cristina’s quiet confidence, authenticity and how hardworking she is,” Berezhnaya — who is here at Wimbledon to support Bucsa — said in a message.
Bucsa’s journey began when her father, Ion, a former Moldovan biathlete, would place objects on the floor in front of his baby daughter.
“A toy piano, ballet shoes, a table tennis racquet, a tennis ball,” Bucsa said. “I always chose the tennis ball.”
Since then, Ion has coached Cristina all the way. The Spanish tennis infrastructure is stacked with coaches and academies promising high-end training and a pathway into the professional game, but the Bucsa family preferred to stay in Torrelavega, where they had settled when Cristina was three years old.
Located on Spain’s northern coast, it’s not exactly tennis country — water and mountain sports are far more popular. Bucsa loves living just 15 minutes from the Cantabrian Sea and an hour from the Picos de Europa mountains, which means that in spring she can ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon.
Tennis wasn’t Ion’s sport, but he transferred a wealth of knowledge from his own athletic career.
“Biathlon is an endurance sport,” Bucsa said. “You ski, then you have to stop and try to control your heart rate to shoot a very small target. It’s incredible. He tried to teach me that — to keep going and going, but never lose the focus. Every day we work like that.”
Their methods could be unconventional. Without access to clay courts, Bucsa learned to slip and slide by practicing on hard courts in the rain. But they paid off. Bucsa’s top accomplishments so far have come in doubles. Last year, she won the Madrid title and an Olympic bronze medal alongside Sara Sorribes Tormo.
“I dreamed about being a medalist when I was really young,” she said. “My dad went two times to the Olympics, and I wanted to have that dream for him because he didn’t take a medal. It was a very special moment.”
Bucsa intends for her career to have many more special moments. Though she will not be drawn on specifics, aiming high is a necessity for her.
“It doesn’t matter where you practice or what you do,” she said. “The important thing is working hard and having a big goal. I have a very big goal. Step-by-step, every day I’m enjoying the path.”