A meteoric rise to stardom unfolded Thursday night as 18-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko captured her maiden WTA Tour title at the National Bank Open, toppling former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka in a dramatic final. The Toronto-raised phenom rallied from a sluggish start to defeat the four-time Grand Slam champion 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, electrifying a capacity hometown crowd that nearly drowned out the umpire’s repeated calls for silence during pivotal rallies.
The victory catapults Mboko from 85th to 25th in the WTA rankings and etches her name alongside Canadian legends Faye Urban (1969) and Bianca Andreescu (2019) as the only homegrown champions of the tournament in the Open Era. Her three-set triumph capped a breakthrough week where she defeated four major champions—Osaka, Coco Gauff, Sofia Kenin, and Elena Rybakina—including a straight-sets rout of top-seeded Gauff in the quarterfinals.
“This is beyond anything I imagined,” said Mboko post-match, having clinched victory when Osaka netted a backhand on championship point. The teenager sank to her knees as roars reverberated across center court, where passionate fans tested tournament protocols throughout the 25-game thriller featuring 13 service breaks. Mboko proved ruthlessly efficient under pressure, converting eight of nine break-point opportunities while weathering Osaka’s early dominance.
Born in North Carolina to Congolese immigrants before relocating to Toronto at age six, the wild card entrant becomes just the third player ever to win a WTA 1000 event with that status, joining Maria Sharapova (2011 Cincinnati) and Andreescu (2019 Indian Wells). Her success highlights Canada’s growing tennis infrastructure, having developed three distinct champions across decades—Urban as a pioneering amateur, Andreescu as a grand slam-winning prodigy, and now Mboko as a multicultural trailblazer.
For Osaka, the final marked her strongest performance at this tournament level since reaching the 2022 Miami Open championship match. The Japanese star, who took a 15-month hiatus beginning in late 2022 to welcome daughter Shai, remains without a title since the 2021 Australian Open but showed flashes of her peak form in Montreal. Early breaks in the opening set showcased her signature power game before Mboko’s resilient baseline play and tactical serving adjustments shifted momentum.
The match statistics underscored both players’ service struggles, with only 12 aces combined against 11 double faults, but Mboko’s 74% first-serve win rate in deciding set proved decisive. Tournament organizers noted the historic implications of her victory, achieved at an event where she initially required wild-card entry. As Mboko ascends into the Top 30, her improbable run underscores women’s tennis’s capacity for swift generational shifts—a narrative amplified by defeating both established icons and rising stars en route to the trophy.
