Victoria Mboko Surprises and Wins the National Bank Open Title
The young Canadian tennis player Victoria Mboko has achieved an impressive feat by winning the title of the National Bank Open. After a complicated start, Mboko came back to defeat the Japanese star Naomi Osaka with a score of 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. This triumph not only represents the first WTA Tour title for the 18-year-old, but will also catapult her from 85th to 25th in the world rankings. With this victory, Mboko joins Faye Urban (1969) and Bianca Andreescu (2019) as the only Canadians to win the Montreal event in the Open era. The emotion overflowed on the center court when Osaka sent a shot into the net, at which moment Mboko knelt before the ovation of the public. Immediately afterwards, she ran to celebrate with her family and coaches.During the match, the intensity of the crowd forced the referee to ask for silence on several occasions. Mboko, visibly moved, expressed her affection to the audience in French and thanked them for their support during the week. Regarding Osaka, after the match, she limited herself to a “Thank you, I guess” to the applause and did not congratulate Mboko, then declining to speak with the media. The match was marked by 13 service breaks in 25 games, with Mboko converting 8 of 9 break points. Despite playing with a wrist injury, which she described as “difficult to move”, the tennis player showed great resilience. Mboko revealed that on Thursday morning she had to be taken to the hospital for X-rays and an MRI, after suffering a fall in the semifinals. Despite the upsets, Mboko managed to overcome four Grand Slam champions in this tournament, including Coco Gauff, whom she defeated with a resounding 6-1, 6-4. She also beat Sofia Kenin and Elena Rybakina. Naomi Osaka, former Grand Slam champion and world number 1, had her best performance in a WTA 1000 tournament since reaching the Miami final in 2022. Since then, she took a 15-month break and had her daughter Shai in July 2023. She hasn’t won a title since the 2021 Australian Open. Mboko becomes the third wildcard player to win a WTA 1000 title, following in the footsteps of Maria Sharapova in Cincinnati (2011) and Andreescu in Indian Wells (2019). In addition, she is the second-lowest ranked player to win a WTA 1000 or Tier-1 title since the Tier-1 category began in 1990.When I had that winning moment and saw so many people standing and cheering me on, it was a surreal experience. I never thought something like that would happen so suddenly. This shows that your dreams are closer than they seem.
Victoria Mboko
