When Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Cristina Bucsa first teamed together ahead of the 2025 Mubadala DC Open, their first goal was to qualify for the 2026 WTA Finals. 

The two had discussed the opportunity of pairing up during last year's Grass-Court Swing, and while their first match together -- a 6-3, 6-1 defeat to Taylor Townsend and Zhang Shuai -- was underwhelming, they bounced back with a title in Monterrey their next event together.

That first WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz title as a team, where they won all matches in straight sets, set the foundation for the next year-and-a-half as Melichar-Martinez and Bucsa are among the top eight doubles teams set to compete at the 2026 WTA Finals Indian Wells.

"It was our first goal for this year to qualify, and we worked so hard in every tournament to do that," Bucsa said to wtatennis.com in Wuhan after qualifying. "We are very happy to finally get to qualify for WTA Finals."

The WTA Finals has been a common destination for Melichar-Martinez, who is set to appear in her fifth crown-jewel event since 2018. In addition, she was a two-time alternate, and will bring that experience alongside Bucsa, who will debut at the WTA Finals. 

After a season-long race, the world's top players converge in the California desert with the WTA's biggest title still to be won.

At Indian Wells in March, the duo advanced to the semifinals in one of their strongest results of the year. They also advanced to the quarterfinals at the US Open, the finals at Rome and Ningbo, and won the championship in Guadalajara. A semifinal run in Wuhan in early October booked their ticket to the WTA Finals. 

"Overall, when we were at the tournaments, we were practicing a lot together, working on things as a team and just trying to continue to grow and build," Melichar-Martinez said. "That's really that's helped us, and I think we've been pretty consistent with our results as well."

It wasn't the smoothest journey to Indian Wells, however.

Following a Round of 16 run at Roland Garros, the pair didn't compete together during the grass season and missed prime opportunities for points in the race as Bucsa was recovering from a right-wrist injury. 

Melichar-Martinez said while she keeps an eye on the race throughout the first part of the year, she starts to focus more closely following Wimbledon. Since they had missed a chunk of time on the court, Melichar-Martinez and Bucsa strategized their schedule to ensure they'd be in a strong spot to qualify. 

"It was like 'OK, how are we doing our schedule to make sure?' That was our goal since the beginning of the year," Melichar-Martinez said. "We weren't in a bad position, but not in a great position either. We needed to do some work."

Still, being slightly behind in the race didn't phase the pair who just focused on getting the results one tournament at a time.

After returning on the court at Cincinnati, the pair accrued 1,775 of their 3,740 points this season (47.5%). 

"We were thinking tournament by tournament, to do our best on each event we played and we got that success thinking like that," Bucsa said. 

While Melichar-Martinez has WTA Finals experience to lean on and will compete on home soil, Bucsa will partake in the round-robin format for the first time. 

Melichar-Martinez enjoys the structure of the tournament, and knowing that they'll have at least three matches, it gives teams an opportunity to bounce back and stay competitive.

"You're either playing Grand Slam champion or Grand Slam finalist or a great team," Melichar-Martinez said. "Every match is important, but they're all teams that we've played throughout the year at some point, maybe even a couple times, so we all know each other.

"We're going to have the week before to prepare, so we can work on the things we want to sharpen up and what works well in those conditions."