After beginning the season with a 22-match unbeaten run on the second-tier ITF Tour, Mboko has shown over the past two weeks that she can mix it with the elite – beating Grand Slam winners Coco Gauff, Sofia Kenin, Elena Rybakina and Osaka.<\/p>\n
It’s validation of hard work from the age of three, and for parents who landed in a very different United States in 1999 – one which provided solace from political unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
But it’s in Toronto where Mboko – who was born in Charlotte in the US – was inspired to play tennis.<\/p>\n
“I remember going there as a kid and watching all the great players playing,” Mboko told the Women’s Tennis Association.<\/p>\n
“We were watching a lot of Serena and Venus [Williams], and that’s where I took a lot of inspiration, because Serena was literally the greatest of all time. I used to see how the pros are and I used to be in so much awe of them. And now I’m seeing them like right beside me.”<\/p>\n
Mboko’s coach Nathalie Tauziat – a former world number three and Wimbledon finalist in the 1998 – has overseen Mboko’s remarkable form after previously guiding her in the junior ranks.<\/p>\n
“I think what is important for her is to see us not panic when something happens. I remember at the beginning of the year, she always told me: ‘Oh, you’re so calm during the match,” Tauziat said.<\/p>\n
“The US Open is the objective – who knows, maybe she can do something good? Here, we are going match by match, and hoping for no injury.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After beginning the season with a 22-match unbeaten run on the second-tier ITF Tour, Mboko has shown over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-67489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}