The Current - What makes Victoria Mboko a tennis star?

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Victoria Mboko is only 18 years old, and she has already become a tennis sensation — and is capturing the hearts of millions of Canadians. At the Women's National Bank Open semi-finals in Montreal Wednesday night, she won against the former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, becoming one win away from taking the title. We discuss how the only Canadian woman left in the tournament rose to the top and how she is just getting started.

Hi, everybody. I'm J.B. Poisson and I host Frontburner. It's Canada's most listened to daily news podcast. Just the other day, we were in a story meeting talking about how we can barely keep up with what's going on in Canada and the world right now. And like, it's our job to do that. So if you are looking for a one-stop shop for the most important and interesting news stories of the day, we've got you. Stop doom scrolling. Follow Frontburner instead. This is a CBC podcast. Hello. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is a. the current podcast. It's been a wild ride, and it's not over.

That was the crowd in Montreal last night after a Canadian tennis player, Victoria Mboko, won her match in the Women's National Bank open semifinals. She was playing against the former women's champion, Elena Rubakana, who previously beat Mboko in the last month's D.C. open. The 18-year-old Canadian underdog has been taking the tennis world by storm. She beat out top-ranking world tennis players, including Cocoa Golf, who currently ranks number two in the world to secure her spot on court last night. And she's the only Canadian

woman left in the tournament. She's captured the hearts of Canadian fans who have been loudly cheering her on. I've never really had so many people cheering for me in a tournament, especially a WTA tournament since this is kind of the only tournament Canada has. term. So to have that kind of support at a tournament like this, it's amazing. And I couldn't be more grateful. And I think it's so cool that so many Canadians get to come and support me. Stephanie Miles is a reporter with Open Court and online tennis news site. She's been covering tennis for 20 years and is in Montreal right now covering the National Bank Open. Good morning. Good morning. We just heard what the stadium was like when Victoria and Boko one last

Like, what was it like being there? It was pretty, it was electric, you know? I mean, the Montreal tennis fans are actually pretty great generally, and they really support this tournament, especially, you know, the women's event, which is not necessarily true elsewhere around the world. And, you know, the tournament began with the fans saying officially goodbye to Jeannie Bouchard, and that was pretty intense. And now it's sort of ending with all of this.

So I'm telling you, it's been definitely one tournament for the ages from a Canadian perspective. Walk us through the game. Well, it didn't start off very well. The issue that Mboko has with Rabakana is that they both do the same thing. They both hit the ball really hard and try to overpower their opponents. But Rabakana hits it harder. She's six foot one, and it doesn't look like she's hitting it that hard because it's such easy power that she has, but she really does. So the first set went quickly, and then, you know, and Boko got a little help.

Rabakana started spraying the ball around the place, started making a few errors, and she just sort of jumped right into the breach, and I took advantage. But then she fell, and she went over on her ankle a little bit, but the problem was mostly that she used her wrist to break her fall, and it was clearly painful, and she had it wrapped up, and I thought, oh, here we go, you know, but apparently she's got quite a good pain. tolerance. And so, you know, she got through that. And again, you know, her opponent gave her the opening at the end. Should have finished it off. Should have. Served for it twice. And but couldn't close

the deal. And Mboko showed signs of, you know, the future champion she might well become because she just took that opportunity. And she ran with it. And of course, had the entire stadium behind her. I don't think she probably woke up this morning and still couldn't believe it. This is a huge win for Mboko, Canadian fans, excited about her making it to the finals. We were to her earlier talk about the fans. How much of a crowd favorite has she been this tournament? Oh, you know, of course she has been. And, you know, the Montreal fans will support every Canadian who comes, you know,

who plays in the tournament. And when one does as well as she does, you know, that makes it even more so. Plus the fact that she's kind of like fresh meat, you know, she's the new kid on the block. And she's the one that it's the first time that, you know, I mean, I've obviously been following her for a number of years, but most people haven't. So for her to put up this kind of performance at home is something that you really cannot underestimate because so many tennis players when they play their home events, whatever they are, whether it's Wimbledon or the Australian Open or the Italian Open, really, you know, have struggle at home because they're just trying so hard. They want it so much that it actually works against them. So her insusians, her, you know, 18-year-oldness is probably working in her favor in this particular case because all of this is still just new and fun and exciting. And oh, my God, people are asking me for my autograph and it's so great.

And I love all this travel. And, you know, she's really in that phase now. So I think that that probably helps her because this is the first time that she's ever, you know, she's ever played the main draw in this tournament. And look what she's done. Victoria has had an incredible year. She's just 18 years old. is the youngest player to make it to the semifinals in this tournament in decades. She's also beating top-ranking world players.

Walk us through her performance this year and how she got to last night's semifinals. Well, she started, you know, she was a very, very good junior player. She made the junior doubles final at Wimbledon, but she's always had knee issues. And so those really kind of plagued her during her junior career. They've resolved that somewhat, I think. And so she started the season at a turn. tournament with $25,000 total prize money in Guadalupe and Martinique, a couple of tournaments at the beginning of the year because she was ranked 33, so she couldn't get into the big events.

And so she won both of those and singles and doubles and just went on this crazy tear at the, I guess you would call it sort of the minor league level. And then she started getting opportunities because she's signed with a big tennis agency and they own some tournaments so they could give her some wild cards. So she started playing up to the big events and performing well. I mean, she played Cocoa Gough in Rome at the Italian Open, and she was the only one to even win a set from her. So this has been sort of building for the last few months.

She had to play the qualifying rounds at the French Open and at Wimbledon. So she had to win three matches just to get into the main draw. And she did that, and she won matches in the main draw. So it's been, you know, she's just sort of kept winning, even though she jumped up several levels, impressively. From 333 to being in the top 50? Yeah, I mean, I think she's 34 now. And if she wins tonight, she could be 25 in the world. So she will go to her first U.S. Open in a few weeks as a seated player, where a year ago she couldn't even, you know, get in the parking lot, basically.

Her family is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tell me about her family and how she got into tennis. Well, her dad's a tennis dad, and that can have some connotations, but I think he's actually a pretty good tennis dad. And so there are three other older siblings who I think were all born in Congo, and they immigrated to the U.S., and she was born there, North Carolina, and the whole family moved up to the Toronto area when she was but four. So when all of your older siblings play tennis, of course, you want to play too.

And it often happens that it's the last one of the line, like Andre Agassi, if everybody knows who he is, he had a tennis dad and they had four kids. And he was the fourth and final kid. And he was the one who ended up making it. So, you know, it's always been part of her life. And she, you know, so from a very young age, people really knew she had talent. And so when you have talent, people will help you. And so she's gotten help from, you know, various academies. And she went down to a Florida academy and she went to one in Belgium.

And so she's one of those tennis muts who was sort of developed a little bit everywhere. And people thought maybe she might even sort of break out sooner than this. But again, the knee injuries, the knee issues sort of held her back. And so this is her time. I'll come back to Victoria and Boko in a moment. But I wanted to ask you about something else that happened at the National Bank Open. Ukrainian tennis player Elina Zvidelina has spoken out about the hateful messages she received from frustrated gamblers after losing a match. What has she said about the kind of comments she received?

It's an absolute plague. It is, and it's not just the women tennis players, it's all tennis players. It's a tennis player who loses a match at a tournament where he'll get $1,000 to win the whole thing. and if he loses a match, he's going to get that stuff. And it jumps into everybody's Instagram messages. And it's death threats and threats to the family. And I hope you get cancer and all of this awful stuff. Because, yeah, again, you know, people are very, very brave online anonymously.

It's starting to spill over into real life, as we've all sort of seen. But there's not, you know, they have some software applications that they can use to sort of filter out that stuff. but the only real way to avoid it is to just not go on social media, especially during a tournament. But sometimes, you know, players lose and they almost want to go on there and have people tell them how awful they were. But, you know, not to this extent. It's a not really a resolvable problem, I don't think,

and it's only getting worse. Let's get back to Victoria Mboko. What does it mean for Canadian tennis more broadly to have a player like Mboko playing so dominantly right now and becoming such a fan favorite. Well, you know, I mean, it's all about whether she can sort of sustain it or not. You know, I mean, as I said, to do what she's done at home is just a huge way to announce yourself to the world, right? But certainly over the last decade, there have been, you know, a number of Canadian players who have done great things at her age.

And we're talking about Bouchard and Bianca Andrescu, who won the U.S. Open when she was 19. out of kind of nowhere. And then on the men's side, there's Felix Oje Aliasim and Dennis Shapovalov, who got into the top 10, and another new guy coming up, Gabriel Diallo,

who's also coming up. So there are enough players, there are enough players that we just expect Canada to do reasonably well at all the big tournaments. But, you know, Oje Ali Asim and Shappav

went out in their opening matches in Toronto this week. So it's nice to have somebody who's won. winning. And it just sort of continues the flow of interest into the sport. And what you hope is that a lot of people can relate to her. And a lot of young kids will choose tennis over hockey or the usual sports that kids choose. Victoria and Boko will be in the finals tonight. What do you think her chances are of winning?

Well, you know, she went over on her ankle and she used her wrist to break the fall during the match last night, and it looked like it was quite painful. I think probably last night she was running on some adrenaline and it didn't feel that badly, but I bet you she woke up with it pretty stiff this morning. So I only hope that she's fit enough to play, you know, and give a good account of herself against a very tough opponent in Naomi Osaka, who is going to be the fourth former Grand Slam champion that she'll have faced in this tournament, and she's beaten the first three. Wow. Thanks for joining us this morning. Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Stephanie Miles is a reporter with the online tennis news site Opencourt. She's in Montreal covering the National Bank Open. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. At all time zones, you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.