mboko_victoria1280
Rising Canadian tennis star Victoria Mboko is through to the quarterfinals of the Qatar Open after upsetting fifth seed Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5) on Wednesday.
Mboko, seeded 10th at the WTA 1000 hardcourt tournament, survived match point when Andreeva committed a double fault before converting a crucial break to tie the third set 5-5.
The Canadian finished off the victory in the tiebreaker by ending a match-point rally with a backhand winner.
“I feel like I came out with some very clutch shots at the end,” Mboko said afterward, per the WTA Tour. “I think we both were pretty tired when it came to the tiebreak. I think I felt like I was lucky enough to have some good shots in the great moments.”
The contest was the latest chapter in a budding rivalry between two of the top-10 players in women’s tennis.
They met for the first time last month in the final of the Adelaide International, with the 18-year-old Russian winning 6-3, 6-1.
“I didn’t really have a specific tactic against her,” Mboko said. “But I know she slices really well, and she hits really low. I think she forced me to hit those (slices and spins). She covers the court really well, so I think for me it was just trying to find the little window to open the court. Yeah, I just found myself hitting those kinds of shots because that’s all I felt I could do.”
Mboko improved her record to 11-3 this season. The 19-year-old from Toronto is coming off a breakout 2025 campaign in which she won two titles, including a 1000-level crown at the National Bank Open in Montreal.
She entered the Qatar Open with a career-high world ranking of 13th and could potentially break into the top-10 with a win in the quarterfinals.
Mboko will next face the winner of a third-round match between Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and China’s Zheng Qinwen.
In doubles action, Ottawa’s Gabriela and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani — the fifth seeds — earned a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Czech Marie Bouzkova and Russian Liudmila Samsonova. But Montreal’s Leylah Fernandez and France’s Kristina Mladenovic dropped a 6-2, 4-6, 10-4 decision to the fourth-seeded tandem of Anna Danilina of Kazakhstan and Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic.
— with files from Sportsnet.