By Chris Oddo | Wednesday August 6, 2025
Grand Slam champions keep stepping up to face teen sensation Victoria Mboko in Montreal, and the kid keeps knocking them down.
For the third time in six matches at the Omnium Banque Nationale, Mboko defeated a former major champion, as she advanced to her maiden WTA final with a 1-6 7-5 7-6(4) victory over Elena Rybakina.
“It was an incredible match,” Mboko, who has also defeated Sofia Kenin and Coco Gauff on her way to the final, told the Montreal crowd. “I want to say thanks to everyone who supported me tonight. It was electric, and I’m very happy – oh my god!”
Mboko battled over two hours and 45 minutes, rallying from a set down and twice from a break down in the final set as she saved a match point and finally pushed past the No.9 seed in a tiebreak, winning the final three points to lock up a spot in the final where a fourth former major champion – Naomi Osaka – will be waiting.
Osaka defeated Clara Tauson in Wednesday’s second semifinal, 6-2 7-6(7).
Mboko survived despite winning only 35 percent of her second-serve points, thanks to a 72 percent first-serve percentage and a very timely break game. With pinpoint returns, stellar defense, and plenty of guile she earned six breaks of Rybakina’s serve as she locked up her second consecutive Top 20 win and became the youngest woman to reach the final in Canada since Belinda Bencic in 2015.
What was Mboko most proud of?
“I would say my ability to kind of come back in the third set,” she said. “I feel like after I had that fall, I wasn’t in the greatest spirits. Of course, she was playing really great tennis on top of that, but I’m happy that I kept my composure, and I was kind of patient in the right moments.
“I just feel really happy that I was able to bounce back after being down. Even a match point…”
Mboko is also the only Canadian woman to ever defeat three former Slam champions in the same event in Open Era history.
“It was very difficult, Elena is a very good player, but anything can happen,” Mboko said.
The victory was not accomplished without adversity.
Mboko took a fall in the second game of the final set, and had her right wrist examined after the third game, but she was able to play through the pain to get the victory against the woman who knocked her out of the Washington, DC draw last week.
“Unfortunately I fell,” Mboko said. “But everybody was supporting me and pushing me through.”
A remarkable effort from a young woman who is playing in her seventh WTA main draw, and just her third at the WTA 1000 level.
Ranked 85 at the start of the week, Mboko is up to 34 in the WTA live rankings at the moment. She was outside the Top 300 when the season started but 41 wins and just eight losses across all levels have propelled the former junior world No.6 to her current perch.
A Battle Royale
It was tense from start to finish against Rybakina, who rallied from a break down to level at 5-5 in the second set, just two games from the win. But Mboko won eight of the final ten points of the set to force a decider.
In the third, Rybakina was in the driver’s set again, leading 4-2 and 5-3 with a break, but she failed to convert a match point while serving at 5-4 and was broken.
After breaking back in the next game, she was broken at love by Mboko and a tiebreak ensued.
The Canadian saved her best for last – a line-licking forehand that went for a winner and a 5-4 lead in the breaker. Two points later she sank to her knees in disbelief, another Grand Slam champion, another victim of a raw, talented phenom on the rise.
