Victoria Mboko celebrates her victory against Coco Gauff during their fourth round singles women's match at the National Bank Open at IGA Stadium in Montreal.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
When she was a kid, Victoria Mboko used to attend Canada’s marquee professional tennis tournament as a fan, idolizing the players and snapping photos with them. Today, she’s 18 and starring in the event, advancing to Monday’s quarterfinals following the biggest win of her fast-rising career.
The young Canadian wildcard stunned top seeded Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-4 in the round-of-16 at the National Bank Open on Saturday to extend her Cinderella run. Next, she will face an unseeded opponent, Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain. Mboko has become the headliner in Montreal.
Canadian teen Victoria Mboko defeats top-seeded Coco Gauff at NBO
She is the first Canadian to reach the quarterfinals at the home tournament since Bianca Andreescu won it in 2019, and its youngest Canadian quarterfinalist since Helen Kelesi in 1987. She’s the youngest in the event’s elite eight since Gauff three years ago.
It took her just 62 minutes to topple the World No. 2 on Saturday, a 21-year-old American WTA superstar with two Grand Slam titles to her name, including the recent French Open. When the win was official, Mboko dropped her racquet and covered her face as if astonished, while the full stadium rose to its collective feet and applauded her.
“I don’t even know what to say, I was kind of shocked,” Mboko said to reporters afterward.
Victoria Mboko became the first Canadian since Bianca Andreescu’s title run in 2019 to reach the National Bank Open final.
The Canadian Press
Her commanding, powerful play on court contrasts with the cheery, youthful personality that comes out in her press conferences – a gracious, polite teen in awe of all the attention and the size of the crowds watching her.
“Every day they’ve been coming to all my matches and supporting me a lot, and I couldn’t be more grateful,” she said. “I’ve never really had so many people cheering for me in a tournament.”
Mboko, who began the season ranked No. 333 in the WTA Rankings, arrived in Montreal at No. 85. The win over Gauff sends her to No. 55 in the live rankings. A tournament win would bring her to No. 24.
She was born in Charlotte, N.C., to parents who had fled the Congo. They moved to Toronto when she was a young child and she eventually followed her three older siblings into tennis. Her strength and ball-striking impressed many in Canada. Mboko played her first ITF tournament at 14. Agents came calling early. She came to prominence in juniors and made two Grand Slam junior doubles finals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Most young players need years to work their way through the lower rungs of pro tennis, but Mboko has sped through. In January and February of 2025, she won four ITF titles, securing 22 consecutive match victories without dropping a set.
She made her WTA Tour singles main draw debut in March at the Miami Open, earning her first match win against Camila Osorio. She also made the third round at Roland Garros this year and won a match at Wimbledon.
When she won her match against Gauff, Mboko dropped her racquet and covered her face, as if she were in disbelief over scoring the big win in front of a home crowd in Canada.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
Mboko had already met Gauff earlier this year – and stole the first set off her in Rome at the Italian Open before the American rallied back to win that match.
The Canadian said she was thinking about that prior match when they met again Saturday, knowing she could not let her guard down. Mboko saved all five break points against her that night, while converting four of five against Gauff.
It was Mboko’s first victory over a top-10 player. Gauff told reporters after that the Canadian “is going to have a very bright future.”
“She’s very athletic, she’s a great ball-striker, and she seems pretty positive out there on the court, doesn’t really get too negative,” Gauff said.
“I don’t know her too well but have gotten to talk to her a little bit since Rome and I think she’s got a great support system around her and that’s important when you’re young and on tour. Hopefully we have many more battles.”
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Mboko’s run in Montreal has also included wins over 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, and world No. 39 Marie Bouzkova. She will try to make magic again on Monday in her first-ever meeting with Bouzas Maneiro, the 22-year-old World No. 51 from Spain.
“What makes [Mboko] special is obviously the power that she can generate from the serve and from the baseline. I believe she has an exceptional backhand, like way above normal,” Guillaume Marx, Tennis Canada’s VP of High Performance, told The Globe earlier this summer, “and then she has the mentality, the belief.”
She has impressed the tournament director Valerie Tetreault in Montreal too, someone who got to know Mboko when she was 14 and began at the National Training Centre. Her emotions have been steady.
“It was probably the first time that she was playing matches this late [at night] … pretty big crowds as well, crowds that are expecting her, that are showing up for her. But I think she’s showing great maturity,” said Tetreault.
“In terms of the champions that we see in tennis and in any sport, it always feels like there’s something special about them, and it needs to be in you. And I think she has that in her, and ... we can see that right now, just by how composed she is.”