Tennis
2026-01-18 - Elina Svitolina vs Cristina Bucsa
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis : Australian Open First Round
Sunday 18th January 2025 - Scheduled 1:30pm
2:30am (British Time)
Preview
Throughout her career, Elina Svitolina has been a serial Quarter Finalist at Grand Slam events with a couple of Semi Final runs sprinkled in.
Last year was the third time she has reached the Quarter Final here in Melbourne, but that is where the Svitolina runs have tended to come to a conclusion. The World Number 12 has not been beaten in the First Round at the Australian Open since her debut campaign and Elina Svitolina will enter the 2026 tournament with the confidence of having won a title already in the preparation event in Auckland.
This should give Svitolina the confidence to beat Cristina Bucsa, even if the latter has just entered the top 50 in the Rankings for the first time in her career.
After battling past her opening opponent in Brisbane, Cristina Bucsa was crushed by the current World Number 1 and that means she is just 4-9 in matches against top 50 Ranked opponents on the hard courts over the last twelve months. An upset over Elise Mertens at the US Open has to be respected, but in those nine defeats, five have been suffered by a margin that would see Bucsa fail to cover this spread.
Much of this First Round match could come down to the Elina Svitolina second serve- if she can avoid giving away too many of those or if she can protect it a little better, it should mean Svitolina is in control of this match.
You do have to note that Elina Svitolina is not someone who avoids upsets as regularly as some of the top names on the WTA Tour, but she is 10-5 on the hard courts over the last twelve months when facing players outside of the top 20 in the World Rankings.
Two of those defeats have been to former Grand Slam Champions making their way back onto the Tour, but overall the numbers suggest the Ukrainian does protect her second serve well enough to beat a player like Cristina Bucsa.
The Bucsa second serve has proven to be very vulnerable against the better players on the Tour over the last twelve months and that may see Svitolina surpass this big spread.
Prediction
This is a wide spread in a best of three set format, but the Auckland Champion can find the breaks of serve to edge past the number.
The Pick :
Elina Svitolina 2-0 Cristina Bucsa
