MONTREAL — The scene at the end of yet another home-court win tells you everything you need to know about MbokoMania.
After Jessica Bouzas Maneiro’s final shot sailed long and the Montreal crowd rose and roared, a grinning Victoria Mboko put one hand on her hip and then outstretched her free hand with her palm up and gave a slight shake of her head. It was as if she was saying, ‘It is wild that this moment, this story, is happening right here, right now.’
Mboko is now just two wins away from capturing the National Bank Open presented by Rogers title in her first appearance in the main draw. With a partisan crowd, including her dog Ivy, cheering her on, the 18-year-old Canadian beat Spain’s Bouzas Maneiro 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals on Monday.
“I keep surprising myself,” Mboko said in an on-court interview with Sportsnet’s Danielle Michaud minutes after the win.
With 51 victories and counting on the year, she won’t be surprising others when she wins for much longer.
As a kid — or at least a younger kid — Mboko wondered what it would be like to play a big match on Centre Court at her training base.
Well, she’s now played five of them — and has lost only one set in what is just her seventh career WTA Tour main draw.
“I feel really happy, first of all,” Mboko told reporters about an hour after the 77-minute match. “To have such an achievement at a tournament like this is really a milestone for me. And I’m just so happy that I’ve got to have this whole experience in Montreal.”
It certainly wasn’t tennis at its best, as Mboko and Bouzas Maneiro, 22, ran up the unforced-error count — perhaps not surprising considering both players were on this kind of stage for the first time.
But while not showcasing the dominant form that saw her run top seed Coco Gauff off the court in 62 minutes two nights earlier, Mboko raised her level at key moments and got better as the match went on. She eventually took charge against the world No. 51, who had no answers as Mboko won six games in a row to clinch it after falling behind 2-0 in the second set. This would not be a letdown loss, seen so often in many sports for teams or players on a newfound rise.
“I really put in a lot of effort to really fight (after) I was down 2-0 (in the second set),” Mboko said. “She broke me in the first game of the second set, so I guess I could show that I was a fighter in that situation … I think that moment was just pure fight or flight kind of instincts, and I really wanted to do the best I could to break her back, and I did everything in my power to stay in there and match her, match what she was producing.”
We are starting to see Mboko trademarks.
Trouble on serve? The Canadian delivered five service winners to take one game in the first set after falling behind 15-40.
If an opponent’s struggling on serve? Mboko won 16 of 20 points on Bouzas Maneiro’s second serve. Sure, the Spaniard gave the Canadian some free points, but that’s to be expected for a 22-year-old player who has never been in a WTA Tour semifinal. Mboko made fewer mistakes, and delivered enough winners to put the pressure on her wary opponent — Bouzas Maneiro had spent three-plus hours more than the Canadian on court through the first four rounds.
Following the handshakes, Mboko pumped both her fists, clapped her racket and blew kisses to the fans, who will get a chance to watch a Canadian woman in the semifinals in Montreal for the first time in the Open Era (which started in 1968). She’s also the second Canadian woman overall to make the NBO semis since 1970, following Bianca Andreescu’s championship win in 2019 in Toronto.
Mboko will return to her underdog role in Wednesday’s semifinal against No. 9 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan. The 2022 Wimbledon champion was up 6-1, 2-1 in her quarterfinal against Marta Kostyuk before the Ukrainian retired because of a wrist injury.
Rybakina beat Mboko 6-3, 7-5 in the round of 16 less than two weeks ago in Washington.
“Of course, I’m not expecting an easy match whatsoever,” Mboko said. “I’ve played her, so I know what to expect. I think I just need to maybe up my level a little bit and just to stay in there with her. She has really great groundstrokes, really great serve.”
Ranked 85th before the tournament, Mboko is now guaranteed to reach the top 50 after this event. She could get inside the top 25 if she wins the tournament.
And that’s not impossible. None of the top five seeds reached the quarterfinals, opening the door for other players.
Mboko will also pocket at least US$206,100 for reaching the semifinals, more than half of what she’s earned this year ($396,293).
Ranked outside the top 300 heading into the year, Mboko started 2025 by dominating at lower levels before getting her shot on tour. She’s now 51-9 on the season.
“I don’t feel fresh, but I also don’t feel so tired,” she said. “I think it helps that we had a day in between every single day to kind of regroup and collect myself. So, no, every day I’ve just been doing what I needed to do to recover well. Most of the day has been the night match, so I do have a lot of time in the day to like take naps and do what I need to do to prepare for the night. And yeah, I think I feel pretty OK right now.”
‘Pretty OK’ sure feels like a huge understatement.
No matter what happens on Wednesday, this week has been a huge success.
