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Montreal – The most difficult game to win is the game after you have made a huge upset.
And so for the 18-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko, no. 51 ranged Jessica Bouzas Maleiro a challenge. Another kind of challenge. A new kind of challenge – being the favorite to win a quarterfinals at the WTA 1000 level is new territory.
But Mboko came as a champion after a conservative start, won 6-4, 6-2 and moved to the half national semi-finals of Omnium.
There she will meet on Wednesday evening no. 9 seed Elena Rybakina, for the second time in two weeks.
Performance unlocked. Another experience gained that she did not have before. Again, she is busy with the accelerated program.
Mboko did not come from the gate all the tennis poles. The ball of Bouzas Maleiro has a lot of Topspin, a very different dynamic to attack from her earlier competitions. In the beginning she was too far behind the basic line, maybe she got her bearings.
And she seemed to concentrate on getting her first service, more than unleashed those 180-Mph bombs.
Bouzas Maleira was more often focused on the forehand of Mboko and in the beginning it worked well. That said, if we are all focused on the remarkable Run of Mboko, it was also quite a huge opportunity for the 22-year-old Spaniard.
Mboko let Bouzas Maneiro van de Haak Early with a few early breaking point facilities. But at the pointed end, Mboko broke her 5-3. Then she was broken on a double error. And then the Canadian broke for the first set.
The figures were messy; The 21 casual mistakes of Bouzas Maleiro were almost a full set of gifts for Mboko. And the Canadian was not far behind.
But there was never a touch of panic; Maybe, a maximum of one or two small signs of frustration.
Mboko went down 0-2 in the second set. But then she ran for six consecutive games when the machine started to hum and, in a directly reverse relationship, Bouzas Maleiro faded.
“I have the feeling that I had a bit of a slow, rocky start in the second set. I mean, I feel that I had to find a way to stay with her in the rallies. … She is a really solid player, and she hits really hard shots and very consistent shots. So I had to raise my level, and I had to put my movement and my focus,” she said. “In general, I think that was just my most important focus during the entire second set. I really wanted to pump myself a lot. Yes, I think that is a pretty big change in the competition.”
When it was over, Mboko raised her arms to her people and giving birth as if she couldn’t completely believe it.
But winning will be a habit. And now the 18-year-old is in the top 50 with a bullet.
The live ranking is number 48. If she can beat Rybakina on Wednesday evening, that would rise to no. 33 – most likely on its first US open with Zheng Qinwen in the long term after elbow surgery.
If – and there is a dream week, right? – She wins the tournament, she would jump in the top 25. That is too insane to even think for a player who started the season at number 333.
But that is the level of tennis that she is playing now.
Mboko becomes the second-youngest player in the top 50, behind Just Mirra Andreeva and early eight months younger.
The only other teenager in the top 50 is the Maya Joint of Australia, who turned 19 in April. Mboko will be on August 26, August 19 – which is perhaps the day that she will open her to us.
Mboko was struck 6-3, 7-5 by Rybakina in the second round in Washington, DC only two weeks ago.
In a sense it is a plus; She has not played dozens of players at the highest level. And in this case (as was the case with Gauff, albeit on another surface), there is less mystery the second time.
“I think I just have to raise my level a bit and just to stay there with (Rybakina). You know, she has really great Groundakes, really great services. So I think I want to do my best that day to stay with her,” Mboko said.
But Rybakina also has a much better idea of what to expect. The wedding travel period that a young and emerging player can enjoy before the rest of the WTA tour gets a bit of a bead on her, closes quickly for Mboko. She is now impossible to ignore.
“She is a tough opponent. She has really good strokes, and she plays quickly, and she has really served. I feel that it was also a bit difficult for both of us in Washington, because it was a night game, and the circumstances were, like, very different. Now we played here, and before she knew she knew with a sin of the evening. After the evening.
“So she is absolutely dangerous. She has nothing to lose, and I am sure she enjoys it. Yes, it will be a difficult one. Hopefully I can take my best with me,” she added.
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