Toronto teen Mboko extends perfect run to reach third round at French Open
PARIS — Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko was No. 333 in the WTA Tour rankings at the start of 2025. On Friday, she'll play in the third round of the French Open main draw.
It has been an unexpectedly fast and furious climb up the women's professional tennis ladder, and she's just getting started.
'I was very focused throughout the whole match," Mboko said Wednesday after seeing off No. 59 ranked Eva Lys of Germany, 6-4, 6-4 in her second-round match. "Of course she was a very solid player, especially from the baseline. She really made me earn every single point."
Ranked No. 156 at the April 21 entry deadline for the qualifying, Mboko was unseeded. And yet, she ran through three quality players — Sinja Kraus of Austria, Kathinka Von Deichmann of Liechtenstein and Kaja Juvan of Slovenia — without dropping a single set.
She continued that run in her first-round win over Lulu Sun of New Zealand, a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon last year, and added another straight-sets win over Lys, a 23-year-old currently ranked a career-high No. 59.
With the win over Lys, Mboko will officially enter the top 100 after the end of the French Open. She currently boasts a 'live' ranking of No. 89 as she prepares to meet No. 8 seed Zheng Qinwen in the third round on Friday.
Mboko, who was born in the United States and raised in Toronto, began the season making moves on the lower-tier ITF circuit. After 22 straight victories and four titles, she was on her way.
Few were paying attention then. But through her agency IMG, she was able to get a wild card into both the Miami Open and the Italian Open — WTA 1000-level events similar to Canada's National Bank Open.
She pushed No. 10 Paula Badosa to a third-set tiebreak in Miami and took world No. 2 Coco Gauff to three sets in Rome, drawing huge plaudits from the 21-year-old American who saw something of herself in her Canadian opponent.
After reaching the final of a WTA 125 tournament in Parma, Italy, Mboko headed straight to Paris.
She had competed at Roland Garros three years ago during a successful junior career that brought her to No. 4 in the world but also had her competing with a knee that hurt every single day for several years.
She's healthy now, finally. And this was her first Grand Slam tournament in the senior ranks. Mboko has made the most of it.
That anonymity she enjoyed just a few months ago is gone now. With every victory she has posted in Paris, the spotlight has only become more bright.
All four Mboko children played tennis; fellow Canadian players Denis Shapovalov and Félix Auger-Aliassime both remember Kevin Mboko fondly from their early years.
But Mboko, by far the youngest of the four, ended up having that something special.
Her father Cyprien, a retired engineer who immigrated from the Democratic Republic of Congo with wife Godée in the early 2000s, and who shepherded all four of his children through the junior tennis system in the Toronto area, is on hand. Kevin and her big sister Gracia, who turns 29 on Thursday, are both in Paris supporting her.
After her qualifying victories, one Canadian journalist was there to get her thoughts as they stood outside the entrance to the second stadium court, Suzanne-Lenglen, at the other end of the site.
After beating Lys on Wednesday, Mboko was assigned the main press conference room in the Roland Garros media centre.
She also had one-on-one interviews with European and American sports networks, with the French sports daily L'Équipe and with a well-known tennis podcast.
Everyone is hopping aboard the Mboko bandwagon.
'Of course there is so much happening, even behind the scenes. But I feel like my family has been doing a good job of keeping me really isolated from it all. I have just been enjoying the moment. And I have been enjoying time with my sister and my brother,' she said.
Mboko hasn't been home to spend time with family much in recent years. She spent about seven months at the Justine Henin Academy in Belgium last year — there were people from that academy in attendance for her first-round victory, followed by a hug-filled reunion.
And this year, she has been on the road constantly — the French Open is her 11th tournament of the season. Plus she made her Billie Jean King Cup debut representing Canada in Japan last month.
She still has braces on her upper teeth; she said she has to wait to get them taken off until she's home in Burlington, Ont., for a decent amount of time.
But before all that, she will face Zheng on Friday.
Zheng, a finalist at the 2024 Australian Open who won Olympic gold in singles on these same red clay courts last summer, said Mboko's age and inexperience don't mean she'll underestimate her.
'I think every time I see a young player coming, they have a lot of hunger, for sure. They fight a lot, because it's their dream place. But same as me; it's my dream place too,' Zheng said. 'When you arrive in the professional tour, you don't think any more about the age because everybody's the same. You just face another opponent.'
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Stephanie Myles, The Canadian Press
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Contact Information Mike Arnold, CEOir@ Sources Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Just War Theory (accessed 26 May 2025). Pew Research Center, Majorities of U.S. Veterans and Public Say the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Were Not Worth Fighting (10 July 2019). University Poll, 84 Percent of Voters Concerned the U.S. Will Be Drawn Into Military Conflict in the Middle East (2 Nov 2023). Research Center, Wide Partisan Divisions Remain in Americans' Views of the War in Ukraine (25 Nov 2024). AP News, Countries Shore Up Their Digital Defenses as Global Tensions Raise the Threat of Cyberwarfare (April 2025). ITONICS, Defense Trends Report: Hypersonics, Cybersecurity, and Autonomous Systems (accessed 26 May 2025). DefenseOne, Hypersonics, Autonomous Systems Top DepSecDef Nominee's Emerging Tech Priorities (February 2025). GovConExec, Canada Accelerates NATO Minimum Defense Spending Initiative (January 2025). NATO, Strategic Concept 2022 (29 June 2022). Mark Sullivan, PitchBook Says Defense Tech Is a Stalwart in an Otherwise Chilly VC Environment, Fast Company (9 July 2024). Dale Swartz et al., Creating a Modernized Defense Technology Frontier, McKinsey & Company (12 Feb 2025). SpaceNews, Silicon Valley Players Aim to Follow SpaceX's Disruptive Path in Defense Sector (March 2025). Bloomberg, Defense Startups Palantir, Anduril to Save Battlefield Data to Train AI Models (December 2024). The Guardian, Move Fast, Kill Things: The Tech Startups Trying to Reinvent Defence with Silicon Valley Values (March 2025). The Business Research Company, Defense Global Market Report 2024: Market to Reach $676.64 Billion by 2029 (accessed 26 May 2025). DefenseScoop, DoD Intensifies Efforts to Counter Small Drones at U.S.-Mexico Border Amid Cartel Surveillance (29 April 2025). Rhys McCormick & Greg Sanders, Trends in Department of Defense Other Transaction Authority Usage, Center for Strategic & International Studies (Aug 2021). U.S. Government Accountability Office, Defense Innovation Unit: Actions Needed to Assess Progress and Further Enhance Collaboration, GAO-25-106856 (Feb 2025) Anthony Effinger, The Sacred Mushroom … Is Having a Bad Trip, Willamette Week (10 May 2025). Vince Sliwoski, Oregon Psilocybin: State of the State (2024), Psychedelics Law Blog (30 Dec 2024). Joseph Gallivan, Oregon's Legal Psilocybin Industry: Growing Pains, Healing Gains, Lucid News (16 May 2025). Dr. Fadia Abbas Hadi, "The Role of the Neoconservative Movement in American Foreign Policy - A Case Study of Iraq," Hammurabi Journal for Studies, Vol. 13, No. 50 (June 2024). Elhefnawy, "What is Neoconservatism?," SSRN (2021). Tooze, "Facing War in the Middle East and Ukraine, the US Looks Feeble. But Is It Just an Act?," The Guardian (October 10, 2024). Alexandra G. Neenan, "Department of Defense Contractors and Efforts to Mitigate Foreign Influence," Congressional Research Service Report R48110 (June 24, 2024). Sarjito & Nora Lelyana, "Defense Policy Shaping and Security Governance: The Role and Impact of Defense Industry and Military Contractors," Government & Resilience, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2024), pp. Ronald W. Cox, "The Military-Industrial Complex and U.S. Military Spending After 9/11," Class, Race and Corporate Power, Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2014). analyzes the expansion of the military-industrial complex in the post-9/11 Marshall, MERIP Reports, "The Defense Industry's Role in Militarizing U.S. Foreign Policy" (June 2020). report discusses how the defense industry contributes to the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Defense Innovation Unit: Actions Needed to Assess Progress and Further Enhance Collaboration," GAO-25-106856 (February 2025), pp. GAO report evaluates the performance of the Defense Innovation Unit and its collaboration efforts. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events, financial performance, and operational expectations, including the objectives, prospective transaction, market conditions, and strategic plans. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially, including market conditions, regulatory changes, geopolitical factors, and capital availability. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their date. No Offer or Solicitation This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities. Any such offering will be made only in compliance with applicable laws and through authorized offering documents. To view the source version of this press release, please visit
