Cristina Bucsa vs Harriet Dart Prediction, Expert Picks, Odds, H2H, 4/24/24

It’s a jam-packed order of play from the Mutua Madrid Open on Wednesday. 40 matches are set to take place, with the WTA Tour providing 24 of them. That’s where we find Cristina Bucsa vs Harriet Dart in opening round action. Jon Reid’s Bucsa vs Dart prediction is available below!

Dart is expected to win just 40% of the time, while Bucsa is favored to win at 1.53 odds. The handicap is 3.5 games and the total games line is 21.

Bucsa vs Dart Prediction: Dart’s Surprising Run on Clay to Come to an End Wednesday

• Prediction: Bucsa -3.5 Games
• Best Odds: 1.91
• Bookmaker: Bet365
• Stakes: 5/10

Odds as at 1:20 am UK Time on April 24th, 2024. Odds may now differ.

bet with bet365As impressed as I am with the Brit for navigating her way through the qualifying draw in the Spanish capital, I’m far from being sold on her abilities on the dirt.

She’s uncomfortable with the movement, bounce, pace, and style it takes to succeed (she’s a very flat hitter – something that is incompatible with sustained success on clay courts) on the surface. She’s also beaten a pair of fellow hard courters and has needed nearly five hours combined to register those victories.

Now playing a more natural clay courter, with a much more consistent style, I would expect Bucsa to come away with a fairly straightforward win more often than not. Perhaps the thinner air helps Dart keep a few points short and avoid unforced errors, but this is still someone who was 1-7 on clay in the last two years and was crushed a week ago on red clay as a 1.15 favorite. My Bucsa vs Dart prediction is for Dart to cover the 3.5-game handicap.

Check out our other written previews from Madrid over on the expert insights page.

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Cristina Bucsa Recent Form

After faltering a bit to end her hard-court play in March at the Big 1000 events, Bucsa had a decent start to her clay season with a quarterfinal appearance in Bogota. I think she’ll be annoyed she didn’t go further, considering she was cruising in that quarterfinal against Kamilla Rakhimova before her first serve completely abandoned her and the Russian mounted a comeback.

The point is that Bucsa’s game is well-equipped for clay tournaments at altitude. Her serve isn’t huge, but it does play up a bit in the thinner air and her consistency-based approach to tennis is key as the ball can fly on you and unforced errors can be a problem.

With far more experience and many more wins on clay in her career, I don’t think there’s any questioning the fact that she also possesses the surface edge.

I may not have been as keen to oppose Dart if her opponent wasn’t as strong on the clay or didn’t have a game style that would be able to coax errors from her, but with Bucsa checking those boxes, I’m not sure how one can pass on backing the Spaniard in this spot.

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Harriet Dart Recent Form

If there’s any player already looking forward to the grass court season in about six to eight weeks, it has to be Dart. It means being back on lower bouncing, faster courts, and back on home soil to boot.

Clay has never been her strong suit and I wouldn’t expect that to change this fortnight in the Spanish capital.

She may have three wins already this season, but as I mentioned above, she needed lengthy matches against a pair of players who aren’t great on clay themselves to pick up two of them and the third was against a local player last week who is 17 years old, I’ve never heard of and is outside of the top-1,300 in the world.

Her loss? A lopsided defeat to the young of the Jorge sisters (Matilde). Francisca Jorge wouldn’t have been the best loss for Dart even on the dirt, but Matilde isn’t nearly as strong a player as her sister and even on a poor surface for her, that came as a surprise.

This is a big step up for the Brit in talent and pedigree on the surface, and I’d be happy to oppose her even if she hadn’t spent that much time on court the last two days. Any potential fatigue would just be a bonus.

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Cristina Bucsa vs Harriet Dart H2H – Stat of the Match

These two have split their previous meetings, with both ending in third-set tiebreaks. The important thing to note is that both of those matches came on indoor hard courts, which is Dart’s turf.

So while Bucsa may not have covered this handicap in their prior meetings, this is the first where she has the clear upper hand and I have this at 4.5 games on the handicap, so the 3.5 is showing me plenty of value.

Bucsa’s blended clay elo rating comes in nearly 150 points higher, with Dart’s 1,444 mark being downright bad.

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