{"id":414765,"date":"2026-01-17T06:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414765\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T06:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:35:09","slug":"mboko-and-andreeva-set-for-adelaide-final-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414765\/","title":{"rendered":"Mboko and Andreeva set for Adelaide final showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Victoria Mboko was named WTA newcomer of the year for 2025.Rick Rycroft\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Two of the brightest young talents in tennis will play for the Adelaide \u200bInternational title after 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva and \u200d19-year-old Victoria Mboko advanced to their first WTA 500 final on Friday.<\/p>\n

World No. 8 Andreeva defeated doubles partner Diana Shnaider 6-3 6-2 while Canadian Mboko needed just less than an \u200dhour \u200bto dispatch local favourite Kimberly Birrell 6-2 6-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cVicky, she\u2019s a great player,\u201d Andreeva said in an on-court interview. \u201cShe had an amazing season last year and I\u2019ve known her since I was 12 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve been playing not bad as well, so I think it\u2019s going \u2060to be a great match tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mboko, last year\u2019s WTA Newcomer of the Year whose first title was a WTA 1000-level event in a breakthrough season, overwhelmed Birrell after falling behind 2-1 in the first set.<\/p>\n

There was no stopping her when she won nine straight games to surge \u200cinto the lead, finishing the \u200dmatch with 22 winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of good exchange of rallies. \u200dI feel like I was able to kind of \u200cstay in with her in terms of pace. We had a \u2060lot of rallies where we were running a lot and trying to stay neck and neck \u200bat the baseline,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think having those kinds of rallies and points can help me in other matches when it comes to those points. I think it just gives me a confidence overall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Victoria Mboko was named WTA newcomer of the year for 2025.Rick Rycroft\/The Associated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,82,865,61,593,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-414765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-tennis","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}