Victoria Mboko surges into Canadian Open final with comeback win over Elena Rybakina

When Victoria Mboko tallies up her Canadian Open, the positives column will be overflowing. A first WTA 1,000 semifinal at 18. A statement win over Coco Gauff, a two-time Grand Slam champion, under the lights in Montreal. A rise into the WTA Tour top 50. And a vindication of a season of relentless winning on the third and second tiers of professional tennis, the substance that makes Mboko the real deal, not a fleeting shooting star.

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It will now include a 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) win over Elena Rybakina and a first WTA 1,000 final. The result will mean everything now and for so long. In the fullness of time, winning a match in this manner will mean even more.

The fall onto her right wrist that initially quelled her surge back at the start of the third set might hurt for a few days after. But the way that Rybakina for so long met Mboko’s power with rally tolerance and redirection — and the way that Mboko struggled to return the favor — will represent a blueprint for progress that can last even longer than the afterglow of a famous victory.

Rybakina’s command of tempo, and Mboko’s struggles to regulate it, especially at key moments, will also trace a route toward further progress — but not more than how Mboko managed to take her time and play her game when her back was against the wall in what appeared to be the dying embers of her tournament.

The first set disappeared from Mboko’s grasp in barely a moment. At 1-2, Mboko had four game points to level the contest, having exchanged breaks with Rybakina in the two previous games. On one of them, Rybakina shanked a forehand return onto the sideline and Mboko missed a backhand down the line. Not for the first time, she looked at her box in disbelief. Rybakina needed just one break point opportunity to move up 3-1, and from there, Mboko’s relentless pace of play, between points and between first and second serves, counted against her.

She could not control the tempo of the match, with Rybakina swinging the ball left and right, breaking the sideline and maneuvering Mboko’s comparatively straight-line attack around the court. The set disappeared in a flash, against an opponent who had beaten her in straight sets in their previous meeting in Washington, D.C. The match looked ready to be a lesson on the upward curve that awaits Mboko as she graduates onto the main tour full-time, having gotten to the third round of the French Open earlier this year after coming through qualifying.

But Rybakina had won the opening set here with just 41 percent of her first serves going in, and that vulnerability — combined with a drop in rally tolerance — saw Mboko take a 3-0 lead in the second set. The Montreal crowd, not as raucous as they had been that famous night against Gauff, with the stadium slow to fill for the first of two matches on the night, stirred a little. Rybakina replied with a quickfire hold of serve, found her defense again and broke back, but Mboko got another break to move up 5-3 and serve for the set.

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Again, this time buoyed by momentum, she played it fast. A double fault, and then another, and then a short forehand flubbed into the net saw the speed cost her again. Rybakina broke back and looked ready to ease to victory. Instead, Mboko slowed things down. After exchanging holds, a short slice backhand won her the first point on Rybakina’s serve at 6-5, with the Kazakh serving to stay in the set.

A diagonal forehand to backhand switch, followed by a controlled short backhand off a floaty Rybakina drop shot, took Mboko to 15-30. And another shot just like it took her to 15-40 and two set points. And a forehand crushed onto the baseline drew the error that leveled the match. With Mboko surging, the crowd rose to her, the ALLEZ VICKY signs waving in the evening light.

A few minutes later, Mboko took a heavy fall onto her right wrist, during the opening point of Rybakina’s first service game of the deciding set. She played on, but kept her racket in her left hand whenever she could, holding serve in the next game to lead 2-1 before calling for a medical timeout. Returning to the court with her wrist taped, the fast pace continued, even when time — for the treatment to work — needed to be on her side.

Rybakina duly broke serve at her next opportunity, as she searched for a first WTA 1,000 final of a troubled season, in which her longtime coach Stefano Vukov has been suspended for a year after an independent investigation found him in breach of the WTA Tour’s code of conduct.

Chief executive Portia Archer wrote a three-page letter summarizing an independent investigation into Vukov’s behavior toward Rybakina, which outlined his violations of the code of conduct as including: “Engaging in abuse of authority and abusive conduct towards the WTA Player, including compromising or attempting to compromise the psychological, physical or emotional well-being of the Player; engaging in physical and verbal abuse of the Player; and, exploiting your relationship with the Player for further personal and/or business interests at the expense of the best interest of the Player.”

Rybakina has publicly maintained that Vukov, who denies all wrongdoing, has never mistreated her. While Vukov is barred from coaching at and obtaining credentials to tour events, Rybakina has confirmed that he coaches her between tournaments. Vukov appealed the ban earlier this summer.

Rybakina won the Strasbourg International in May and reached the semifinals of the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., both WTA 500 events, but she has had mixed results at the majors and in WTA 1,000 events, struggling for rhythm. Against Mboko, she controlled it, responding to the Canadian’s second-set surge by going after quickfire service holds, before settling into rally mode on return. With the exception of that marathon game, it appeared to have worked, turning Mboko’s speed against her.

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But there was time for one more pendulum swing. With Rybakina serving for the match, she blazed a backhand down the line wide at 40-30 on match point, and Mboko seized the lifeline to break back for 5-5. Rybakina, as she had done all night, settled into rally mode. The pressure mounted, and Mboko sent a tired double fault long on break point to give Rybakina another chance to serve for the win at 6-5.

Mboko broke back to love.

The deciding tiebreak ebbed and flowed as the match had. Mboko led early, then double-faulted. Rybakina missed a ball long, then sent Mboko onto her heels in a 25-shot rally to level the score at 4-4. And for the first time all night, more out of force than will, Mboko slowed down. On her haunches, she paused. Seconds later, but many more seconds than she had spent between points all night, she was cracking an inside-in forehand down the line to go up 5-4. And then 6-4. And then, a Rybakina forehand sailed long for 7-4 and the match. Mboko had her head in her hands in disbelief and joy, moving into a final against either Naomi Osaka or Clara Tauson with another tennis milestone to her name.

That means a lot now. Having won a match like this will mean much more, for longer and for the better, than any one tournament.

Mboko is the real deal.

(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)

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