After beating Coco Gauff for the biggest win of her career, Victoria Mboko had to hit the reset button at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers.
Especially for younger players, that’s not necessarily an easy thing to do.
But the Canadian shone once again Monday night, continuing to play with a maturity well beyond her 18 years.
Mboko reached the final four with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro to make even more history at the NBO.
“Of course, to play against Coco, it was a really special experience, and I was really happy to have won that day,” said Mboko. “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.”
She became just the third Canadian woman to make the semi-finals in the Open Era after Faye Urban and Bianca Andreescu — and the youngest.
Mboko is the youngest from any nation to achieve the feat at the WTA 1000 level since Belinda Bencic in 2015.
Guess what? All three of those players ended up winning the tournament.
Given her play and with only two more victories needed, few would say Mboko has little chance in Montreal.
Standing in her way in the semi-finals on Wednesday night is a Grand Slam champion like Gauff in Elena Rybakina, who overcame Mboko a little over a week ago in Washington in straight sets.
Even though Mboko had never reached a top-tier quarter-final prior to Montreal, momentum was building. It truly started after Mboko won 22 matches in a row at lower levels earlier this season, all in straight sets.
The stage is much grander now and she is no doubt a household name in Canada by now.
Ranked no. 85 when she began her stint in Montreal, Mboko is now guaranteed a spot in the Top 50.
She received a standing ovation from more than a few of the fans — walking onto the court — after Rybakina’s 6-1, 2-1, retired, win over Marta Kostyuk.
Mboko played cleaner, often scintillating, tennis in her first three wins against Kimberly Birrell, Sofia Kenin and Marie Bouzkova thanks to hefty serves and sizzling baseline play that included backhand and forehand winners down the line.
In the last two wins against Gauff and Bouzas Maneiro, being solid proved to be the key.
While Bouzas Maneiro made 51 unforced errors (combined with 12 winners), Mboko tallied nine winners and 32 unforced errors.
The numbers were better for her in the second set, a set where Mboko raced through the final six games.
“I felt like I needed to up my level, and I needed to up my movement and up my focus,” said Mboko. “Overall I think that was just my main focus during the whole second set. I really wanted to pump myself up a lot too. Yeah, I think that made like a pretty big change in the match.”
Saving break points in the first set made all the difference, especially at 2-2 in the first set.
Even though Mboko wobbled serving for the opening set, her now famous powers of recovery quickly surfaced as she quickly broke in the next game.
The normally unflustered looking Mboko showed some rare frustration in the second set when missing a backhand down the line into the net in the second game.
But her malaise didn’t linger.
Bouzas Maneiro — competing in her first WTA 1000 quarter-final — conducted herself admirably as the crowd heavily backed Mboko. .
Yet despite her propensity to win important matches against noteworthy opposition — her scalps at Majors include Emma Navarro, Marketa Vondrousova and Sofia Kenin — Bouzas Maneiro couldn’t come back against Mboko.
Deep into the 12-day tournament, how is Mboko feeling physically?
“I don't feel fresh, but I also don't feel so tired,” said Mboko. “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.”
Judging by what has happened in Montreal, Mboko won’t need to tweak those preparations.
Photo: Pascal Ratthé
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