{"id":473380,"date":"2026-02-14T00:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T00:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/473380\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T00:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T00:16:13","slug":"canadas-victoria-mboko-advances-to-qatar-open-final-secures-top-10-ranking-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/473380\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Victoria Mboko advances to Qatar Open final, secures top-10 ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Victoria Mboko of Canada plays a forehand return to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus during their fourth-round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, last month.Dita Alangkara\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s Victoria Mboko will play for the title at the Qatar Open and is assured of a Top 10 ranking when the WTA standings update Monday.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old from Toronto advanced to the final Friday, defeating Latvia\u2019s Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-2 in their semifinal. <\/p>\n

Mboko, the tournament\u2019s 10th seed, converted five of nine break-point chances against Ostapenko, who broke twice in four opportunities.<\/p>\n

Mboko finished with six aces and four double faults. Ostapenko, ranked No. 24 in the world, did not record an ace and double-faulted once.<\/p>\n

Mboko becomes the fourth Canadian woman to crack the WTA Top 10 in singles, joining Carling Bassett-Seguso, Eugenie Bouchard and Bianca Andreescu.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of crazy,\u201d Mboko said Friday. \u201cI never expected something to happen so fast for me. I just have been taking it day by day, tournament by tournament. Every tournament I enter, I want to do well. I don\u2019t really hold that much expectation of myself. It\u2019s not like when I enter a tournament, I\u2019m going to say I\u2019m going to win it, but you always want to try your best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadian will face 14th-seeded Karolina Muchova of Czechia in Saturday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Muchova advanced with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 comeback victory over Maria Sakkari.<\/p>\n

Mboko\u2019s run in Doha included an upset of Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina in three sets Thursday after defeating 18-year-old fifth seed Mirra Andreeva \u2014 the other teenage phenom on tour \u2014 in the quarterfinals, avenging her loss to the Russian in last month\u2019s Adelaide International final.<\/p>\n

Now rubbing shoulders with \u2014 and beating \u2014 some of the sport\u2019s biggest names, Mboko insists she is keeping her expectations in check.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really set goals for myself,\u201d she said. \u201cJust because I like to surprise myself along the way. You never know what\u2019s going to happen in tennis. You can have high moments, you can have also low moments. I think just being positive with myself with whatever happens, it\u2019s all a part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In doubles, Ottawa\u2019s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil\u2019s Luisa Stefani, the fifth seeds, fell 6-3, 6-4 in the semifinals to fourth seeds Anna Danilina of Kazakhstan and Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Victoria Mboko of Canada plays a forehand return to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-473380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","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-news","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-news","tag-technology","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\/473380","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=473380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}