{"id":416132,"date":"2026-01-16T04:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416132\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T04:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:47:08","slug":"kimberly-birrell-knocked-out-of-adelaide-international-semifinal-by-canadas-victoria-mboko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416132\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimberly Birrell knocked out of Adelaide International semifinal by Canada&#8217;s Victoria Mboko"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Australian Kimberly Birrell has been knocked out of the Adelaide International semifinal by Canada&#8217;s Victoria Mboko.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The world number 17 Canadian was too good for Birrell, winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">It was a tough ask from the outset for Birrell, coming up against the teen sensation Mboko who has been in excellent form of late.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">In her quarterfinal, Mboko beat defending Australian Open champion Madison Keys 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mboko has been impressive with her serve and that continued in this match, as she smashed eight aces and won 80 per cent of her first service points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">She also won five of a possible seven break points, the first of which came in the first game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">That first game defeat set the tone for the rest of the match as Birrell struggled to get any momentum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Birrell will now switch focus to the Australian Open first round, in which she has been drawn against fellow Aussie Maddison Inglis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Inglis progressed through the tournament qualifying, <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-01-16\/engaged-couple-kubler-inglis-through-aus-open-main-draw\/106236722\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106236722\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">winning her way into the Open on the same day as her fiance Jason Kubler<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Speaking earlier this week, Birrell said she had been working hard in pre-season ahead of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/radio\/programs\/abc-sport-daily\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that&#8217;s making headlines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;Just physically, it goes to show how much I&#8217;ve put into my pre-season,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The Queenslander added that her conditioning was at a good place, thanks to her team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;[A] really big thank you to my team who&#8217;ve been with me for a long time,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;They&#8217;ve put in a lot of hard work over the last few weeks and off-season to get us to perform like this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Birrell and Inglis have played a total of seven games against each other in professional tennis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Birrell has the advantage, winning five of those seven encounters. She has also won their last two matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Aside from that all-Australian match though, there are plenty of other Aussies in action in the first round of the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s draws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">A total of 21 Australians are in the first round \u2014 11 men and 10 women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Kimberly Birrell has been knocked out of the Adelaide International semifinal by Canada&#8217;s Victoria Mboko. The world&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[91327,64,63,6571,151677,219485,85,747,27517],"class_list":{"0":"post-416132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-adelaide-international","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-open","12":"tag-kimberly-birrell","13":"tag-maddison-inglis","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis","16":"tag-victoria-mboko"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}