Victoria Mboko of Canada plays a backhand return to Clara Tauson of Denmark during their third round match at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Thursday.Aaron Favila/The Associated Press
Victoria Mboko is off to the fourth round of the Australian Open.
The 19-year-old from Toronto defeated 14th-seeded Clara Tauson of Denmark 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3 to advance on Thursday evening.
Mboko, the 17th seed, had six aces but had to work through nine double faults at the Grand Slam tennis event. She also broke on five of her 13 opportunities and won 65 per cent of her first-serve points.
In her meteoric rise, Canadian Victoria Mboko is playing beyond her years
Tauson had five aces, four double faults, broke on five of her six chances and won 63 per cent of her first-serve points. She worked back from a 5-4 deficit in the second set before Mboko ran away with the match in the third set.
Mboko faces a tough opponent in the fourth round, in world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. The Belarusian beat Austria’s Anastasia Potapova in straight sets almost immediately after Mboko had won her match, setting the stage for a high profile matchup in the fourth round. The two will play on Saturday.
Earlier, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani advanced to the third round of women’s doubles play with a 6-2, 6-4 win over France’s Elsa Jacquemot and Colombia’s Emiliana Arango.
The fifth-seeded Dabrowski and Stefani will next face ninth-seeded duo Cristina Bucsa of Spain and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the United States.