No. 3 seed Victoria Mboko took the honors in an all-Canadian showdown at the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, defeating No. 2 seed Leylah Fernandez 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 to advance to her second WTA final of the season. She’ll face Spain’s Cristina Bucsa, who raced past No. 5 seed Maya Joint 6-3, 6-1 in just 57 minutes to reach the first tour-level final of her career.

Hong Kong: Scores | Draws | Order of play

Mboko’s breakthrough title run in Montreal in August was marked by multiple comebacks when seemingly down and out. She won three of her seven matches from a set down, as well as saving match point against Elena Rybakina in the semifinals. Her week in Hong Kong is shaping up in a similar fashion: the 19-year-old has won three of her four matches so far from a set down, and also overturned a 4-1 third-set deficit against Alexandra Eala in the second round.

A match of two halves

Against Fernandez, the 2023 champion here who was in supreme form through her first three rounds, Mboko once again demonstrated her ability to problem-solve under pressure. It was a match of two halves that turned early in the second set, as Fernandez took a medical time-out leading 2-1 in which strapping was applied to her right thigh.

Until that point, Fernandez had won eight of the first nine games with smothering, front-court tennis that left Mboko struggling to keep up. Swarming the net, taking the ball early and pulling off bold redirections, Fernandez fired 10 winners to Mboko’s five in the first set. Mboko’s signature backhand repeatedly let her down, and the teenager committed 14 unforced errors in the opener.

On resumption, Mboko elevated her game significantly — particularly her first-serve percentage. Having languished at 58% in the first set, she landed an incredible 34 out of 40 first serves through the second and third, and did not concede her serve again. And now, it was her own defensive skills coming to the fore: a brilliant forehand on the run brought up the first break point of the decider for Mboko. She ended up winning 11 of the last 14 games of her match.

Following the medical time-out, Fernandez’s movement was not visibly hampered, and she continued to have her moments at the net. But the 23-year-old never regained the sustained sharpness of the first set, and finished with her second double fault of the day.

“I didn’t really have the best start,” said Mboko afterwards. “But I gotta give credit to her — she was playing really great, aggressive tennis, which made it hard for me to find my rhythm,. II just started saying to myself, ‘she’s playing really great so I just wanted to stay in there as much as I could with her and find a way. It slowly got me a lot more confidence in my game, and [by the end] I was more brave and able to go for my shots.”

Mboko ends ‘slump’ by taking Canadian honors

Following Mboko’s shock title run in Montreal, the youngster lost her next four matches in straight sets. It couldn’t be labelled a slump — she sustained a wrist injury in Montreal, and subsequently fell to quality opponents including Barbora Krejcikova and Ekaterina Alexandrova. But there was certainly relief when Mboko got back to winning ways last week in Tokyo, where she made the quarterfinals.

Coincidentally, Mboko had been due to face Fernandez in the first round there — until she was promoted to No. 9 seed following Jasmine Paolini’s withdrawal, and the draw was reshuffled. She snapped her losing streak against another compatriot, 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, instead.

In the past two weeks, Mboko has now defeated both of her countrywomen who have reached Grand Slam finals in the past decade. She’s 5-0 against fellow Canadians at all levels this year.

Ending what she describes as “a bit of rough patch” after Montreal means that Mboko is guaranteed to make her Top 20 debut next week, having started 2025 ranked No. 333.

Bucsa routs Joint in just 57 minutes in Hong Kong to make first WTA final

Bucsa finds another significant moment in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong last year, Bucsa fell in the second round — but the tournament was still a significant one for her. It’s where she first met Dasha Berezhnaya, the founder of the Country Club by Dasha brand, which would become Bucsa’s first clothing sponsor of her career.

Indeed, Bucsa has spoken of her love of playing in Asia and affinity with the culture, so it’s appropriate that the No. 68-ranked 27-year-old has delivered one of her best performances here. Against Joint, she was near-flawless with her forecourt play, finding 20 winners to the Australian 19-year-old’s six.

“I played amazing,” Bucsa said afterwards. “There’s a lot of work behind it.”

The result comes after one of Bucsa’s best seasons to date, in which she also reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time at the US Open.

Mboko was a 6-3, 6-2 victor over Bucsa in their only previous meeting, in the first qualifying round of Rome on clay this year.