Before the Canadian Open in Montreal, Victoria Mboko was so new to the top tier of tennis that she didn’t even have a profile picture on the Women’s Tennis Association website. Now, the 18-year-old wild card is set to face four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka in the first WTA Tour final of her career.
Mboko’s journey to the final included a dramatic semifinal comeback against 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. Facing match point and requiring a medical timeout for a wrist injury in the third set, the hometown phenom rallied with the support of the Canadian crowd to secure a 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) victory.
Her path was paved with victories over major champions. To reach the final, Mboko defeated 2025 French Open winner Coco Gauff, Sofia Kenin, and Rybakina, becoming the first Canadian in the Open Era to dispatch three Grand Slam winners in a single WTA Tour event.
The win makes Mboko the youngest Canadian woman to reach the final of her home tournament and only the fourth to do so. According to the WTA, she is also just the third wild card to advance to the Canadian Open final, joining former world No. 1s Monica Seles (1995) and Simona Halep (2015).
This breakout performance marks a meteoric rise for the young Canadian. Ranked No. 350 at the end of 2024, she broke into the top 100 last month and is now guaranteed a spot in the top 40, regardless of the final’s outcome. Her only previous final experience was a runner-up finish at a lower-tier WTA 125 tournament in May.
“No words can even describe how I feel right now,” Mboko said after her semifinal win. “Nothing would’ve ever prepared me to be in the final. If you would’ve told me last year that I was gonna be in the final here, I would’ve said, ‘You’re crazy.’”
Born in North Carolina to parents who emigrated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mboko’s family moved to Toronto when she was a child. Inspired by her three older siblings, she picked up a racket at age three and recalled attending the Canadian Open as a child with her family, whose support she still relies on during tense moments. “Family brings us a sort of comfort that no one else can kind of replicate,” she said in a WTA feature.
Known for her powerful play, Mboko’s mental fortitude has been equally impressive. “I’ve been in situations where the score was tight and I kind of panicked a little bit, but I really wanted to calm myself down and just forget about the last point and always focus on the next,” she said of her semifinal rally.
Her performance has already captured the attention of tour veterans. “I want her to have all the resources she possibly can to be the best player she can be,” 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens told CNN Sports. “We see her now… I think she can be a Grand Slam champion. I think she could probably be number one in the world.”
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