Victoria Mboko Conquers the Canadian National Open Title
The young Canadian tennis player Victoria Mboko starred in a dream performance by winning the title of the Canadian National Open on Thursday night, after overcoming a complicated start and defeating the Japanese star Naomi Osaka with scores of 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. Mboko, 18, will climb from 85th to 25th in the world rankings, achieving her first WTA circuit title. She joins Faye Urban (1969) and Bianca Andreescu (2019) as the only Canadians to win the home event in the open era. After Osaka sent a ball into the net, Mboko fell to her knees, unleashing the euphoria of the audience present on the center court. The winner ran to hug her family and coaches in the box.Mboko, born in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Congolese parents and raised in Toronto, added: “I never imagined that something like this would happen so suddenly. This shows that your dreams are closer than they seem.” The audience’s excitement was such that the referee repeatedly requested silence during the points. Mboko, addressing the crowd, expressed: “It’s been an incredible week here in Montreal” and added an “I love you!” in French. After the match, while the audience applauded Osaka with some mixed shouts, the Japanese tennis player responded with a “Thank you, I guess”, and did not congratulate Mboko. Osaka subsequently declined to speak to the media. The match featured 13 service breaks in 25 games, with Mboko converting eight of nine break points. He achieved this despite a stiff and inflamed wrist, which made movement difficult. After suffering a fall in the third heat of the semifinals on Wednesday, Mboko went to the hospital on Thursday morning to undergo X-rays and an MRI, finally receiving the go-ahead to play. Mboko, who often touched his wrist, commented: “Today was a very hectic day. It’s incredible. Words cannot describe what happened today.”When the moment of victory arrived and I saw so many people standing and cheering me on, it was a surreal experience.
Victoria Mboko
With his wrist bandaged, Mboko accumulated 13 double faults and the speed of his first serves decreased. In this hard-court tournament, she defeated four Grand Slam champions, including a victory over Coco Gauff with a score of 6-1, 6-4, as well as defeating Osaka, Sofia Kenin, and Elena Rybakina. Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion and former world number one, had her best performance in a WTA 1000 tournament since reaching the final of Miami in 2022. She took a 15-month break towards the end of that season and had her daughter Shai in July 2023. She hasn’t won since the 2021 Australian Open. Mboko is the third invited player to win a WTA 1000 title, after Maria Sharapova in Cincinnati in 2011 and Andreescu in Indian Wells in 2019. She is also the second lowest-ranked player to win a WTA 1000 or Tier-1 title since the Tier-1 category began in 1990.There were times when it bothered me a lot, but I felt it was the final one. I told myself: ‘You have one more left’.
Victoria Mboko
