Canadian teen Victoria Mboko
completes dream run in Montreal with first WTA Tour title
[August 08, 2025]
MONTREAL (AP) — Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko completed a
dream run to the National Bank Open title Thursday night, overcoming
a slow start and swollen right wrist to beat Japanese star Naomi
Osaka 2-6, 6-4, 6-1.
The 18-year-old Mboko — who will jump from 85th to 25th in the world
— won her first WTA Tour title and joined Faye Urban in 1969 and
Bianca Andreescu in 2019 as the only Canadians to win the home event
in the open era.
Mboko dropped to her knees after Osaka fired a shot into the net as
a raucous packed house burst into cheers around center court. The
winner then ran to hug her family and coaches in the courtside box.
“When I had that winning moment and seeing so many people standing
up and cheering for me, it was kind of a surreal experience,” said
Mboko, who was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Congolese
parents and grew up in Toronto. "I would have never thought
something like this would have came so suddenly. It just proves that
your dreams are closer than they (seem).”
The crowd was so rowdy, the umpire repeatedly asked fans to “please
be quiet during the points.”
“It’s been an incredible week here in Montreal,” Mboko told the
fans. “Montreal, je vous aime!”
After the match, when the crowd applauded Osaka with some yelling
mixed in, she said, “Thanks, I guess,” and did not congratulate
Mboko. Osaka later declined to speak to the media.
There were 13 service breaks in 25 games, with Mboko converting
eight of nine break points. And she did it with a stiff and swollen
wrist that was “hard to move.”
After falling hard early Wednesday in the third set in the
semifinals, Mboko woke up Thursday morning and rushed to the
hospital for X-rays and an MRI, but ultimately received the green
light to play.
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Victoria Mboko, of Canada, celebrates after her win over Naomi
Osaka, of Japan, in final action at the National Bank Open women's
tennis tournament in Montreal, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (Christinne
Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
“Today was such an eventful day actually,” said
Mboko, who often shook her wrist in visible discomfort. “It feels
unbelievable right now. I mean, words cannot really describe how
today went.
“There’s some moments where it was aggravating me a lot, but I feel
like it was the final. I just kept saying to myself, ‘You have one
more to go.’”
With her wrist wrapped in a bandage, Mboko piled up a whopping 13
double-faults, and the speed of her first serves dipped.
She beat four majors champions in the hard-court event, routing
top-seeded Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-4 and also topping Osaka, Sofia Kenin
and Elena Rybakina.
Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion who reached No. 1 in the
world, had her best performance in a WTA 1000 tournament since also
reaching the Miami final in 2022. She stepped away for 15 months
toward the end of that season and had daughter Shai in July 2023.
She’s winless since the 2021 Australian Open.
Mboko is the third wild card to win a WTA 1000 title event,
following Maria Sharapova at Cincinnati in 2011 and Andreescu at
Indian Wells in 2019.
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