Victoria Mboko still can't believe what happened at the Canadian Open, where she won her first WTA 1000 title after receiving a wild card from the tournament organizers. The 18-year-old player started the season as world No. 337, but after a great campaign in ITF tournaments at the beginning of the year, she climbed the rankings in a meteoric rise.
The player born in 2006 quickly made a name for herself among the best. She overcame the qualifying rounds at the Rome Open and gave a good battle to Coco Gauff—the eventual tournament champion—and then reached her first WTA 125 final at the Parma Ladies Open, where she fell to the experienced Egyptian Mayar Sherif.
Mboko's ascent would continue in the following weeks after she qualified for the French Open and advanced to the third round, where she fell to the 2024 Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen in straight sets. A month later at Wimbledon, she would again get through the qualifiers to reach the second round, where she lost to Hailey Baptiste.
However, she made her biggest impact at the WTA 1000 Canadian Open—her third time in a main draw of that category. On her way to the final, she defeated three Grand Slam champions: Sofia Kenin (23rd), Coco Gauff (1st), and Elena Rybakina (9th)—the latter in a third-set tiebreak, setting up a final with four-time major champion Naomi Osaka.
Osaka's experience in these situations mattered little, and Mboko came back from a set down to secure the most important victory of her career by 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, and her first professional title. Mboko received a boost of 1,000 points in the WTA ranking, and after having reached the top-100 for the first time in early June, she climbed to the top-25 in less than two months.
Mboko quickly became the new star of the WTA and is currently ranked No. 24. There are only five players under 20 in the top-100, led by world No. 5 Mirra Andreeva, with Mboko being the second—currently at No. 23 in the live ranking.
Her great rise in the ranking will not only allow her to make her first appearance in the US Open main draw (and her first direct qualification for a Grand Slam main draw), but she will also quickly begin her journey at Flushing Meadows as a seed ed player.
“Honestly, if you’d told me a year ago I was going to be a direct acceptance into the main draw of the US Open, I would have told you you’re crazy,” she said in a recent episode of the Served with Roddick podcast. “But yeah, I’m super excited for it. I think I’ll even be seeded, which is insane to think about.”
The Canadian will be the 22nd seed at the US Open, considering the absence of Zheng Qinwen and Paula Badosa from the tournament—both due to injury—which allows her to move up a couple more spots among the seeded players. With this, she avoids any opponent within the top-32 until a potential third round.
“Of course, it’s a different approach, because you already know that you’re in the draw so you have a more clear schedule of what things are going to look like this week. So yeah, I’m heading to New York on Tuesday and I think I have a lot more time to prepare as well,” she added.
“I’m really excited first of all. I want to have as much fun as possible, and it’s my first time also playing the main draw in the US Open on the WTA Tour, so that’s a really new experience for me. So I think along the way I’m just going to ease into it. It’s a really great opportunity so I just want to capitalize as much as I can and honestly just have as much fun as possible.”
Mboko decided not to participate in the Cincinnati Open due to her long campaign in Montreal, as she would have had to make her debut just one day after her campaign in Montreal. In any case, she looks forward to participating in the US Open in a week, still waiting to know the draw.
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