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On Thursday night in Montreal, Victoria Mboko, 18, completed one of the most impressive races in the history of Canadian tennis, defeating four times champion of Grand Slam and former No. 1 of the Naomi Osaka world to win the Open of the National Bank for its first title of the WTA Tour.
Playing through a wrist injury suffered during his semifinal victory over Elena Rybakina, the ninth planted, the precada Canadian teenager recovered from another approximate openness for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over an increasingly hayful victory of Osak First 6-1 set before returning to take the next two 7-5, 7-6 (4) against Wimbledon 2022.
Before that, Mboko bothered Coco Goteff (the Open of France 2025 and the champion of the Open of US 2023) and the No. 23 Sofia Kenin (the champion of the Australia Open 2020), both in straight sets. She is the youngest woman to knock out four Grand Slam winners in the same tournament, since Serena Williams, 17 years old in the 1999 US open to capture the first of her 23 main titles.
The National Bank Open (known as the Canada Open before several re-contests of the sponsors) is not as prestigious as the United States Open. But it is classified as a WTA 1000 event: the highest level in terms of awards and classification points offered on the women’s tour, apart from the four blows. Mboko took $ 752,275 US to home for victory, eclipssing their previous professional earnings of $ 458,001, along with 1,000 points.
With that impulse, Mboko continued his meteoric ascent in the world ranking. The year began at number 333 before winning five titles in six openings on the ITF of Lower Level. After reaching the final of the Open Ladies of Clay-Court Parma (a WTA 125 event) in May, Mboko had an impressive debut in Grand Slam, making the third round of the France Open as a qualifier. That moved her to the top 100 for the first time, and a second round in Wimbledon uploaded it to No. 85 entering the National Bank Open. The victory last night took her to No. 24, a place ahead of Osaka and higher than any other Canadian singles player.
Victoria Mboko limited an unreal race in Montreal to capture the title of the National Bank Open.
Next stop: the US Open
Mboko announced today that the Cincinnati Open is omitting another WTA 1000 event, due to its painful doll. It had been scheduled to face No. 14 Diana Shnaider of Russia in the 64th round on Saturday.
Assuming that he is healthy, Mboko will return to the United States Open, as of August 24. It will be among the 32 players planted in the female raffle in New York, giving (at least on paper) a more favorable path in the last Grand Slam of the year.
If you are experiencing Dej Vu right now, you are not alone. In 2019, a non-sown teenager named Bianca Andreescu became the first Canadian woman in 50 years to win the Canada Open (then called Rogers Cup) when Serena Williams left her end in Toronto due to rear spasms with Andreescu leading 3-1 on the first set. A month later, Andreescu, 19, surprised Williams in Sets in the US Open final to become the first (and still alone) Grand Slam singles champion of Canada.
The Canadian tennis star in manufacturing reflected its unlikely Nbo Tournament in Montreal.
Beyond his age in his great season (Mboko turns 19 at the end of this month), the two players share other biographical similarities. Both are children of immigrants (Andreescu are from Romania, while Mboko came from the Congo with a stop in North Carolina, where he was born) who settled in the Toronto area (Mboko grew up in Burlington, Ontario, Andreescu in Mississauga). And both had their family dog in the stands, with the ivy of the Mbokos following the traces of Andreescus’s coconut.
Having said all that, of course, it would not be fair to expect Mboko to double the monumental victory of Andreescu in the US Open. But if he demonstrated something this week in Montreal, it is that nobody knows where the ceiling is now for the newest feeling of Canada.
