World no. 7 Bern Shelton is enjoying his career-best run at a Masters 1000 level in Toronto. The young American bested Alex de Minaur in straight sets to notch his first semi-final at this level and remain on the title course.
A left-hander prevailed over Flavio Cobolli in the fourth round, celebrating his 100th ATP victory and earning a notable milestone. Ben's rise from college sensation to ATP star has been nothing short of electric.
The American needed only three years since turning professional to claim his 100th ATP win, marking the milestone and gathering momentum ahead of the semi-final duel with his compatriot, Taylor Fritz.
✅ Atlanta 2022: 1st tour-level win
✅ Toronto 2025: 100th tour-level win
Shelton claimed the 2022 NCAA singles title for Florida Gators and turned pro a few weeks later. A left-hander with a booming serve claimed his first ATP win in July at home in Atlanta.
Ben wrapped up his first professional season with three ATP triumphs under his belt. The young gun flew from the US for the first time at the beginning of 2023! He lacked experienced but presented incredible will and desire.
Shelton ended the season with respectable 26 ATP victories, proving himself and setting the stage for an even stronger run in 2024. Ben claimed his second ATP title in Houston and counted 42 triumphs, becoming world no. 13 but ending the season just outside the top-20.
The young American gained a boost ahead of 2025 and extended his great streak, collecting 26 wins before Toronto and becoming world no. 7. Shelton reached the Australian Open semi-final and lost the final of the ATP 500 event in Munich.
He fought well against Carlos Alcaraz at Roland Garros before reaching the quarter-final at Wimbledon. Ben entered his first Major event as a top-10 player and fell to Jannik Sinner after a solid resistance.
Shelton suffered the semi-final defeat in Washington and headed to Toronto with 97 ATP wins. A left-hander embraced a deep run in Canada and provided his 100th victory only three years after turning pro.
His blend of power and charisma continues to excite fans and push boundaries. From college courts in Florida to ATP milestones, Shelton's journey is moving fast, with no signs of slowing down.
The US Open is just around the corner, and the home players will be among the players to beat at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, August 2, 2025 Photo credit: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty
Victoria Mboko expected a tough fight from Coco Gauff.
Before an electric home crowd, the Canadian teenager delivered a knockout.
Eighteen-year-old Mboko repeatedly beat Gauff to the punch toppling the top-seeded American 6-1, 6-4 to score her biggest career win and roar into the Montreal quarterfinals.
“It was one of the biggest matches I could have played so far in my career. So far I feel really happy with how it went,” Mboko told the media in Montreal. “Playing Coco is obviously never easy. She’s No. 2 in the world, and it’s been such a great opportunity for me to play against someone like her. I was just happy I kept my composure today and I pulled it through.”
A dynamic Mboko broke at 15 in the first and last games and spent much of the match playing off the front foot staying one step ahead of the two-time Grand Slam champion.
“I mean, it is tough. I knew she would come in with a lot of confidence, and she’s won her first couple of rounds easily,” Gauff said. “Honestly, I haven’t played the best this tournament, so I knew that it would be tough.
“I don’t know, I just felt like I could do better today, but I also knew that if I took my foot off the gas a little bit, that she would take advantage of those moments, and she did.”
It was Mboko’s first career Top 10 win and she displayed both power and poise pulling it off.
Mboko, who swept former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in round two, made history as the third Canadian teenager to beat multiple Grand Slam champions at a single event. The explosive Mboko joins Bianca Andreescu (Auckland, Indian Wells and US Open in 2019) and Leylah Fernandez (2021 US Open) in achieving that impressive feat.
When things got tight tonight at 4-all in the second set, Mboko did not crack and continued driving the ball deeper than the two-time Grand Slam champion in avenging a three-set loss to Gauff in Rome.
“Honestly, I don’t think she played much different. I think it’s two different surfaces, and I felt like my level was a little bit higher in Rome, so I think the matchup was better,” Gauff said. “But still, I knew in Rome when I played her, it would be a tough match, and it was.
“I knew today it would be hard, and she’s playing, like, high-level tennis. Yeah, I think that’s what showed today. I think she was the better player today.”
Reigning Roland Garros champion Gauff committed 23 double faults—nearly a full set of doubles—in her opener vs. Danielle Collins yet still squeezed out a 7-5, 4-6 7-6(2) victory relying on her grit and legs to get it done in two hours, 56 minutes. In round two, Gauff clanked 14 double faults fending off Veronika Kudermetova 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
Today, Gauff hit just six double faults—one more than the Canadian wild card—but Mboko often handcuffed the top seed slashing returns right back through the middle. Mboko converted all four of her break point chances and frequently controlled the forehand to forehand exchanges.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:’uLUKBF17S-pK-WFuQ966ZQ’,sig:’51iA97VGC6pcaTRw3TddN-yjBFheR4Y71DrdxamQE74=’,w:’594px’,h:’396px’,items:’2227570972,2227571158,2227567016,2227571164,2227567494′,caption: true ,tld:’com’,is360: false })});
Gauff skipped Washington, DC to spend time in the Florida heat working on her serve. That shot was suspect in Montreal this week revealing her service game is still very much a work in progress as she heads to Cincinnati before the start of the US Open later this month.
This match was a rematch of the Rome second round in May when Gauff rallied for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win.
On the faster Montreal court, Mboko showed she’s one of the few women who can run with the speedy Gauff as she prevailed in some of the crackling crosscourt running rallies.
Reflecting on that Rome defeat helped Mboko remain focused throughout the second set.
“Yeah, I was actually really thinking about it a lot during the match, especially after I won the first set. I kind of had flashbacks to when I played her in Rome a little bit,” Mboko said. “I just remember when she kind of came out playing even better and stepped it up a bit better when I played her in Europe, I was thinking about that.
“I kind of wanted to step my game up a little bit more and make sure I matched whatever she was producing, and I wanted to stay right there with her.”
Taking the ball earlier than Gauff at times Mboko burned the world No. 2 blasting drives down the line.
Deadlocked at 4-all in the second set, Mboko cracked a backhand drive down the line then flashed a clenched fist toward her box holding at 30 for 5-4.
Serving to extend the match, Gauff was down double match point when she hit the slider serve wide. On the full stretch, Mboko flicked a forehand return back into play. Gauff got up to the ball but tried to play a short slice and found the net instead.
Clad head-to-toe in blue Wilson apparel, Mboko tossed her racquet aside and covered her face with her hands in an eruption of emotion as Montreal fans exploded with cheers.
Gauff was gracious in defeat crediting the teenager with outplaying her.
“She’s very athletic. She’s a great ball striker, and she seems pretty positive out there on the court, doesn’t get really too negative,” Gauff said. “I mean, I don’t know her too well, but I’ve gotten to talk to her a little bit over the course since Rome. I think she has a great support system around her, and I think that’s important when you’re young and on tour.
“Yeah, hopefully we have many more battles, and I look forward to playing her again in the future.”
Mboko is the first Canadian teenager to reach the quarterfinals since Andreescu won the title in 2019—and based on this performance she’s poised to do even more damage in this North American summer hard court season.
By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, July 31, 2025 Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The Montreal service line loomed like a fault line and Coco Gauff was blowing herself up.
The top-seeded Gauff coughed up 14 double faults but turned an early implosion into an inspirational ending playing her most dynamic tennis in the final set.
Gauff shook off a seven game spiral, surging back to score a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Veronika Kudermetova to battle into the Montreal round of 16 today.
Tennis Express player gear
Down a set and a break, Roland Garros champion Gauff successfully fought off her own sloppy serving and shotmaker Kudermetova and will face either Canadian wild card Victoria Mboko or Czech Marie Bouzkova for a quarterfinal spot.
“I mean the goal is to survive and advance—we all know it’s not my best but it’s good enough for today,” Gauff said. “Mentally, I’m very proud of myself. There’s obviously parts of my game I’m working on, one of them being the serve…I look forward to the future when I’m feeling my best hopeful it’s a little bit easier.”
Through two rounds, Gauff has clanked an unsightly 37 double faults yet she’s reinforced her reputation for resilience raising her 2025 three-set record to 9-1 today.
The two-time Grand Slam champion has the ability to compartmentalize serve struggles, shirk stretches of shoddy play and fight furiously with the match on the line. The question is: Can Gauff pick up her serving as she progresses, and the competition intensifies? The good news, Gauff said, is she’s finding ways to win with her service game “on a crutch.”
“I mean, there’s positives and there’s negatives,” Gauff told the media in Montreal. “Obviously I am so disappointed in myself when it comes to that part of the game just because I didn’t play D.C. to work on that and made changes to that and doing well in practice and serving really well in practice. Yeah, so I just would like for it to transfer to the match.
“It does give positives that, okay, I’m winning these matches having literally like one part of my game on a crutch. So it’s like if I can stand on both feet, then I can only imagine that it would be a lot more straightforward and a lot more easier for me.”
Gauff committed 23 double faults—nearly a full set of doubles—in her opener vs. Danielle Collins yet still squeezed out a 7-5, 4-6 7-6(2) victory relying on her grit and legs to get it done in two hours, 56 minutes.
The normally feisty Collins’ continuously dropping her Tecnifibre racquet to the court in a show of physical frustration that certainly didn’t help her cause. Gauff kept calm despite the deluge of double faults and dug out a third-set tiebreaker, improving to 11-2 lifetime in third-set tiebreakers.
Today, the world No. 2 jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Soon the double fault ghosts haunted Gauff again. Part of the problem today is Gauff sometimes chased her ball toss and was hitting a hybrid kick-slice serve in the opening set: She wasn’t getting the pronation to bring the kick back down in the court but wasn’t slicing the serve severely enough to control it either.
Three double faults in the ninth game saw Gauff gift the break and a 5-4 lead to Kudermetova. If you’re Gauff—or her coaches—you might just want to hit some hard slice serves right into the body in those moments to sustain the racquet acceleration while getting enough net clearance to bring the ball down into the box.
Kudermetova cracked the wide serve on the deuce side to create space. When Kudermetova cranked an inside-out forehand winner she snatched the opening set exploiting seven double faults from Gauff.
From 1-4 down, Kudermetova tore through seven straight games building a 6-4, 2-0 lead.
Empowered by her run to the Wimbledon doubles championship earlier this month, Kudermetova held a break point to go up 4-1, but Gauff denied it. Gauff spun a forehand down the line followed by a backhand strike down the opposite sideline to hold for 2-3.
Striking her forehand with more conviction, Gauff drilled a diagonal forehand winner to break back and level six games into the second set.
Many players resort to the slice forehand when pushed wide on the stretch to extend the point. At times today, Gauff opted to hit slice forehands on balls right down the middle when she had time to set up and hit her traditional topspin forehand. You wonder why she doesn’t take the short preparation steps, create space between her body and the ball and rip some of those forehands just to get her groove going on that wing.
Deadlocked at 5-all, the second set turned on a series of close calls. Gauff badly botched a forehand sitter from nearly right on top of the net choosing to slice her forehand rather than hit it to face a break point.
Surprising the Russian with the drop shot, Gauff got away with it when Kudermetova caught up to the ball but shoveled her forehand out. Given new life, Gauff hammered a wide ace then jolted her opponent backward with a body serve digging through a tough hold for 6-5.
Knowing Gauff’s backhand is her more stable wing, Kudermetova inexplicably played the American’s backhand wing and paid the price as Gauff gained double set point in the 12th game. Kudermetova saved the first set point, but again challenged the Gauff backhand and netted a high backhand volley.
Playing from behind for most of the set, a gritty Gauff broke to force a final set after one hour, 56 minutes.
You can question Gauff’s serve and her sometime flaky forehand, but she is unquestionably one of the toughest competitors on the WTA Tour. After scraping into a third set, Gauff elevated soaring through eight straight points to open the final set. Gauff slashed a forehand crosscourt winner extending to 3-0. Kudermetova, who was sometimes barking at her husband and coach Sergey Demekhine by then, rapidly ran out of answers.
Reading the Russian’s wide serve on the deuce side, Gauff hit some of her finest forehand returns in that final set. A match that saw Gauff dump 14 double faults ended with Kudermetova hitting her first double fault.
Watching Gauff through the first two rounds of Montreal is a bit like watching a sprinter stack her own lane with hurdles right before the race yet still manage to overcome all obstacles and cross the finish line first.
“My energy level is there. I’m not quite at the point where these matches tire me out physically,” Gauff said of winning successive three-setters. “Yeah, I was training in Florida for three weeks having, like, three-, three-and-a-half-hour practices, plus fitness in 90-degree weather with humidity. So it doesn’t feel as long as it is said, but I would love to get these matches under the two-hour mark, but if that’s what it takes, I’m here to be out here.”
Earlier, Marta Kostyuk rose from a dramatic fall out-dueling Daria Kasatkina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) in a match highlighted by one of the craziest points of the tournament.
Two points into the tiebreaker, Kostyuk slipped and fell behind the baseline, dropped her racquet, picked it up extended the point with a forehand and eventually won the point after climbing off the court.
Kostyuk converted seven of 11 break points and exploited 11 double faults from Kasatkina for her second straight three-set win.
The 24th-seeded Ukranian will face next American McCartney Kessler.
The 28th-seeded Kessler conquered fourth-seeded Mirra Andreeva 7-6(5), 6-4.
After electrifying fans and insiders in the early months of this season – in which he won his first ATP title in Buenos Aires after defeating Andrey Rublev at the Australian Open – Joao Fonseca's level has drastically dropped in recent months and there has also been some criticism of the young Brazilian ace.
Many people expected brighter performances from him especially during the red clay season, but his run at the Wimbledon Championships was considered satisfactory taking into account that he has no experience on this surface.
Most experts were convinced that Joao could achieve a very brilliant result at the Toronto Masters 1000, a tournament that has suffered numerous forfeits among top players and has a draw quite open to potential surprises. However, the South American star's run in Ontario ended already in the first round against Tristan Schoolkate, who took advantage of his opponent's numerous ups and downs to achieve victory in two sets.
Fonseca has exited the Canadian Open
The feeling is that Fonseca is feeling a bit from the pressure on his shoulders and is struggling to express his best tennis as he had managed to do in the first months of 2025.
Speaking on 'Tennis Channel', former WTA star Lindsay Davenport analyzed Joao's weaknesses in detail: “He really struggled with his return in the match. Yes, Schoolkate served well but there was no real problem-solving for Fonseca in that category. He just wasn’t able to get the rally in to start the point when he was receiving.
He now has two weeks until his next match, or about 12 days or so. So, it’ll be interesting to see if he goes and does a training block in south Florida. Maybe he goes back to Brazil for a little bit.
You’ve got to be able to manage an 18, almost 19-year-old’s mental game as well, and this has been a lot this year maybe.”
Fonseca's next tournament will be the Cincinnati Masters 1000, which should be very suitable for his game ahead of the US Open.
