In a remarkable season of firsts, Victoria Mboko produced another one Tuesday night in Montreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was my first-ever, I think, midnight match,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cI think this is probably the latest match I\u2019ve played in my life, so that\u2019s a new experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 6-2, 6-3 victory over No. 23 seed Sofia Kenin ended just before midnight, another step forward in what\u2019s shaping up to be a breakout season for the 18-year-old Canadian.<\/p>\n
Most young players need years to work their way through the lower rungs of professional tennis, but Mboko has done it in a matter of months. She played her first Hologic WTA Tour match back in March — and Tuesday’s win over Kenin was already her fifth against a Top 50 player.<\/p>\n
Her next test at the Omnium Banque Nationale comes Thursday in a third-round match against newly minted Prague champion Marie Bouzkova.<\/p>\n
Mboko\u2019s extraordinary rise is a testament to the power of positive thinking and the setting and achieving of goals that might seem out of reach.<\/p>\n
Her parents, Cyprien and Godee, set the story in motion when they fled a chaotic environment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a notoriously unstable country in Central Africa. They settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Victoria Vanessa Mboko was born in 2006.<\/p>\n
She moved to Toronto at age four and followed her three older siblings into tennis. Gracia and Kevin both went on to play in college, and Victoria soon proved to be a prodigy. Her first ITF tournament — in Prokuplje, Serbia — came at the age of 14.<\/p>\n
This past January and February, she made a major statement, winning 20 consecutive matches and four titles in W35s — and a W75 — in far-flung places like Martinique and Guadeloupe, France, Rome, Georgia and Manchester, England.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That earned her a wild card at the Miami Open and, in a sequence that would repeat itself, she stunned Camila Osorio in the first round. In her second WTA Tour event, she qualified in Rome, beating two more Top 100 players, Cristina Bucsa and Kamilla Rakhimova, before taking out Arianna Zucchini in the first round.<\/p>\n
She drew soon-to-be French Open champion Coco Gauff in the second round — and pushed her to three sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she has a great serve, great forehand and backhand and can move really well on the court,\u201d Gauff said earlier this week. \u201cWhen I played her in Rome, I approached that match like she\u2019s going to be obviously a top player — but she was already a top-ranked player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019re going to have many more battles in the future. Yeah, I think she’s going to have a lot of success on tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Mboko can get past Bouzkova and Gauff handles Veronika Kudermetova, they\u2019d meet again in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo face her would be really, really nice again,\u201d Mboko said. \u201cI mean, hopefully that could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gauff wasn\u2019t kidding about that serve.<\/p>\n
Mboko has stroked 27 aces in her first two matches, 15 in the opener against Birrell and a dozen more against Kenin. Not only is it unusual for such a young player to show that kind of power, but those numbers come with a historic context.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The list of players since 2008 (the year the WTA Tour began recording match stats), to hit 12 or more aces in two matches in the same tournament: Serena Williams (2014, 2015), Aryna Sabalenka (2023), Juila Goerges (2018), Alycia Parks (2023) and … Mboko (2025).<\/p>\n
Mboko was granted a main-draw wild card by the tournament she watched closely growing up. That familiarity left her a little anxious as she contemplated her first-round match against Kimberly Birrell.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst time in Montreal,\u201d she said after a 7-5, 6-3 win. \u201cPlaying on the Centre Court was a little bit nervous at the beginning, but I would say that throughout the match it kind of got better, and I felt more confident towards the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo play in front of Canadians, too, you want to kind of put on a good performance. I think that’s why I was a little bit nervous, but I think as I got into the match, it kind of all went away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her PIF WTA Ranking, No. 333 at the beginning of the year, is now up to No. 85. Mboko, who had to qualify for Roland Garros and Wimbledon, thus receives direct entry into the US Open main draw.<\/p>\n
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