Victoria Mboko set for WTA Rankings breakthrough with Pan Pacific resurgence

The past few months have been a struggle for Victoria Mboko as she battled to follow up her stunning Canadian Open title with good results, but she has finally found form again as she has now won back-to-back matches at the Pan Pacific Open.

The teenager announced herself on the global tennis stage in Montreal in August when she beat two-time Grand Slam winner Coco Gauff, 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina and 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin en route to reaching the WTA 1000 final.

In the showpiece match, she faced former world No 1 Naomi Osaka and, after making a sluggish start to the match, she defeated the four-time major champion in three sets to win her maiden WTA Tour title, aged just 18.

Mboko surged into the top 30 of the WTA Rankings on the back of that run, but then struggled with a wrist injury and a loss of form as she lost her opening matches at the US Open, China Open, Wuhan Open and Ningbo Open.

Suddenly her Canadian Open title run felt like ages ago, but she finally got out of her slump as she won her first match in more than two months when she beat fellow Canadian Bianca Andreescu in the first round in Tokyo and she has now followed it up with a confident 6-1, 6-1 win over Eva Lys.

Top 20 Breakthrough

With her back-to-back wins, she has risen three places in the rankings to make her top-20 debut, currently sitting at No 20, and in the process reclaimed the title as Canadian No 1, but the race for the top spot is very much still alive with Leylah Fernandez also in the draw.

Fernandez surged five places to No 22 following her title run at the Japan Open last week and was her country’s top player in the rankings, but she has now dropped to No 2 on the back of Mboko’s revival.

But the battle could intensify in the coming days as the two are projected to meet in the quarter-final of the WTA 500 event, although Fernandez has a big hurdle to clear as she faces second seed Elena Rybakina in the round of 16.

If she gets past Rybakina, then there will be an all-Canadian match-up in the last eight.

The Battle Goes On

As things stand in the Live Rankings, Mboko sits on 1,913 points with Fernandez on 1,821 ahead of her next match, and there is good news for the former as the 2021 US Open runner-up won’t be able to move past her even if she wins her second-round match.

Fernandez will be on 1,869 points if she beats Rybakina and she will only move ahead of Mboko if she wins their quarter-final match.

So Mboko has the title of Canadian No 1 in her own hands as victory over Fernandez will help her to keep top spot for now.