PARIS — Victoria Mboko arrived at Roland Garros fresh off the best clay week of her career — and sounding increasingly comfortable with the idea that bigger moments may be arriving faster than expected.<\/p>\n
She spent the last few weeks playing catch-up. Wisdom teeth surgery delayed the start of her spring. Then, just as she prepared for Rome, illness forced her out before her opening match.<\/p>\n
Now?<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to win a Grand Slam,\u201d Mboko said Monday ahead of her first-round match.<\/p>\n
Because why not? She is, after all, No. 9 in the PIF WTA Rankings, sitting on a 22-8 record and coming off a breakthrough week in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t think that I’d be able to win so many matches and reach the finals,\u201d Mboko said of her performance this past week. \u201cI would not have believed that I would have reached the finals for a clay tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she is still navigating the steeper learning curve of the Grand Slam stage, that run in Strasbourg signals a shift in her trajectory. Though she arrives in Paris with only four previous major appearances, her \u00a0fourth-round showing in Australia this past January suggests she is already comfortable operating on the sport\u2019s biggest platforms.<\/p>\n
Despite the rapid climb, Mboko is still figuring out the basics. She admits her clay game is a work in progress, especially when it comes to movement and sliding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn’t say I’m super comfortable on it,\u201d Mboko said. \u201cIt’s, I guess, your athlete instincts that just help you get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
New tournament, new coach<\/p>\n
As reported last week, Mboko is now working with Wim Fissette.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fissette has coached an all-star lineup of WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz stars, including Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Naomi Osaka and, most recently, Iga Swi\u0105tek.<\/p>\n
It is a significant hire for a 19-year-old who has muscled her way into the Top 10 in under a year. Fissette\u2019s time with Swi\u0105tek ended in March, but his ability to manufacture major champions remains the gold standard on the circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Mboko, who has already won titles in Montreal and Hong Kong, the partnership is a clear signal that she expects to be a factor deep in these events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I work with someone that has that kind of experience and has brought many top players to the best Grand Slams, then that can only be positive for me,\u201d Mboko said.<\/p>\n
Mboko kicks off her Roland Garros campaign Tuesday against Nikola Bartunkova.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS — Victoria Mboko arrived at Roland Garros fresh off the best clay week of her career —…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-694550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694550","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=694550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}