Victoria Mboko celebrates her win over Jaqueline Cristian at the Strasbourg International on Friday.Christian Hartmann/Reuters
Canadian teen tennis star Victoria Mboko will play for her third WTA Tour title after defeating Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-2 in Friday’s semi-finals at the Strasbourg International.
Mboko, the top seed in Strasbourg, clinched the win at the WTA 500 clay-court event with a third set in which she broke Cristian twice on three chances and saved both set points she faced.
The dominant final set came after the 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., faced struggles early on.
Mboko came back from being down a break in the first set before convincingly taking the tiebreaker. Cristian took another early break in the second set, and this time she made it stand to force a decisive third set.
Mboko will face Emma Navarro of the United States in Saturday’s final before opening her second French Open with a first-round match against Czechia’s Nikola Bartunkova on Sunday. It will be Mboko’s fourth match in as many days.
Earlier, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazilian partner Luisa Stefani advanced to the doubles final with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova and Anna Danilina of Kazakhstan.
Dabrowski and Stefani, the tournament’s top seeds, won 70.6 per cent of first-serve points, compared to 52.5 for their opponents, and converted five breaks while conceding three.
Dabrowski and Stefani will face Ulrikke Eikeri of Norway and Quinn Gleason of the U.S. in Saturday’s final as they seek their second title of the season.