Canada's Mboko earns biggest win yet with upset over Gauff at NBO

MONTREAL — As a sellout crowd roared its approval to salute the winner, Victoria Mboko dropped her racket and put her hands over her face.

This was no teenage dream. What Mboko is doing is a wonderful reality for Canadian tennis fans.

The 18-year-old from Burlington, Ont. recorded the biggest win of her rapidly rising career before a raucous crowd here on Saturday, crushing top seed Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-4 in a 62-minute, round-of-16 demolition at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers.

“I don't even know what to say still,” Mboko told reporters about an hour after booking a spot in Monday’s quarterfinals at IGA Stadium. “I was kind of shocked about it all. Everything kind of came so fast. There were so many people. I feel like tonight I'll let it soak in a little bit more, but I'm still kind of on the high a little bit.

“I'm super happy, and I'm just really content with how things went today and that I get to move on to the next round."

Mboko finished off the world No. 2 in 62 minutes, ending it with a break as an error-prone Gauff put the final shot into the net. No other Canadian, on the men’s side in Toronto or here, made it past the third round at the NBO. Mboko is just three wins away from the title in her seventh career WTA Tour main draw.

Gauff won a three-setter against Mboko on clay in Rome in the spring, taking the final two sets decisively after the Canadian’s quick start. But Mboko refused to take her foot off the gas pedal this time. She converted on four of five break-point opportunities, highlighted by match point, and fought off all four of Gauff’s chances to break Mboko’s powerful serve.

“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.”

Remember when Canadian Denis Shapovalov stunned then-world No. 2 Rafael Nadal in a third-set tiebreak here in 2017? This one produced that same kind of enthusiasm in the stands — though with far less tension. Considering how well Mboko has played in four matches this week and throughout a year in which she is now a dominant 50-9 — albeit with many contests out of the spotlight below the tour level — it was clear the Canadian had this kind of level in her.

The lineup to get into the stadium before the match was massive after the day session went long. But the fact the match started about one hour after originally scheduled didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits.

“Let’s go Vicky” chants were loud and proud throughout the match. The Montreal crowd belted out its trademark ‘Ole, Ole, Ole’ chant, usually heard during great Canadiens performances, after the match in an absolutely electric scene on Centre Court.

"That's the bonus of playing at home, I also train here,” Mboko told Sportsnet’s Danielle Michaud after the match. “Sometimes I've been hitting on the Centre Court and I used to envision myself actually playing the Canadian Open here."

Showcasing her power and big serve, Mboko was relentless against the two-time Grand Slam champ. She’s now 24-8 against players ranked higher than her this year.

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When Gauff wasn’t hitting the ball into the net, Mboko was unleashing daunting serves (she won 79.3 per cent of points when she got her first serve in) and punishing groundstrokes.

Mboko’s successful attack mode allowed her to escape any kind of trouble, even when Gauff briefly found her rhythm with her movement and defence. She was the first player not to drop one game on serve against Gauff this year.

Gauff was not at her best this week, double-faulting 37 times in her first two matches and spending more time on the court in a pair of three-set contests (she got a first-round bye) than Mboko did in three matches.

Still, this was clinical.

“I knew in Rome when I played her, it would be a tough match, and it was,” Gauff, classy in defeat, said. “I knew today it would be hard, and she's playing high-level tennis. I think that's what showed today. I think she was the better player today."

Ranked outside the top 300 entering the year, Mboko is now projected to rise at least 30 spots to about No. 55 next week. And who’s to say it stops there, as Mboko can keep climbing with more wins in Montreal.

She’s the youngest Canadian quarterfinalist at the event since Helen Kelesi in 1987. And she’s the first Canadian quarterfinalist since Bianca Andreescu won it all in Toronto in 2019.

“Her rise has been nothing short of incredible,” Eugenie Bouchard, who just retired as a player this week, said on the Sportsnet panel Saturday before the match. “But anyone who knew her in Canadian tennis would not be surprised. She has so much power to her game. I remember practising with her when she was 14, 15 years old. She was smacking forehands, blowing me off the court. We all knew she would be really good.

“Happy to see it happening at such a big event like this as well. She seems to be handling the moment really well. Sometimes playing at home can cause a little bit of pressure, a little bit of stress. I’ve felt both in my career, sometimes it motivated me, sometimes it was a little bit harder. But she is just taking it all in stride and using it as motivation.”

Just eight days ago, Mboko actually did look her age when out for dinner with the former Wimbledon runner-up and some fellow Canadian players.

“She looked at the menu and she looked over at me and she was like ‘what does market price mean?’” Bouchard said with a smile. “And I was like she’s such a kid, this is so cute. Then, you see her on the court and she’s handling it like she’s done that 100 times.”

The days of Mboko catching anyone by surprise are now over, and that presents a new challenge.

But it would be unwise to bet against her. Gauff said she sees a player “with a really bright future, for sure.”

And Mboko sounds like a seasoned pro when asking how she’s handling this success.

“I have been doing exactly the same thing I've been doing every other day. I like to keep the same routine when I'm in a tournament. I think I'm a little bit superstitious in that way, in that sense, but I just like to keep everything super simple.”

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