Victoria Mboko makes Canadian history on home soil and gets another major rankings boost
Victoria Mboko has become the youngest Canadian to reach the semi-final of her home WTA 1000 tournament after she continued her remarkable run in the Montreal event with a victory over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
The 18-year-old received a wildcard entry into the Canadian Open and she has made the most of her opportunity as she has knocked out two Grand Slam winners en route to the last four.
Mboko beat 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the second round and then stunned top seed and two-time major winner Coco Gauff in the fourth round, but she didn’t rest on her laurels as she followed up the victory over the reigning French Open winner with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Bouzas Maneiro.
Her run comes barely four months after she made her WTA 1000 debut at the Miami Open as she also claimed her maiden top-level victory at the tournament before losing in the second round.
Since then, she has reached the third round of the French Open, the second round at Wimbledon and now the semi-final in Montreal as she became only the third Canadian woman to reach the last four in the Open Era after Faye Urban and Bianca Andreescu.
Mboko, who turns 19 on August 26, is the youngest Canadian to make it to this stage while she is also the youngest overall since Belinda Bencic won the title in 2015 when she was 18 years and five months.
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“Of course, to play against Coco, it was a really special experience, and I was really happy to have won that day,” Mboko said after her latest win. “But at the end of the day, I’m still in the tournament, so it’s not like I went to celebrate or anything. I was still kind of locked in like I normally am in a tournament.
“You play a tournament because you want to win it. So, I think I just had that kind of mentality.”
Up And Up In The Rankings
The Canadian started the 2025 season at No 333 in the WTA Rankings, but she surged to No 156 in March after picking up a win at the Miami Open before cracking the top 100 for the first time in June following her run to the third round at Roland Garros.
She climbed to No 85 ahead of the Canadian Open, but is now set to jump into the top 50 as she has risen 37 places to No 48 in the Live Rankings.
Mboko faces her third Grand Slam winner in the semi-final as she takes on 2022 Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina for a place in the final, which could result in a jump to No 33.
“I don’t feel fresh, but I also don’t feel so tired,” the youngster said ahead of her next challenge. “I think it helps that we had a day in between every single day to kind of regroup and collect myself.
“Every day, I’ve just been doing what I needed to do to recover well. Most of the days has been the night match, so I do have a lot of time in the day to take naps and do what I need to do to prepare for the night.”
