Latest news with #LuluSun
USA Today
32 minutes ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Abierto GNP Seguros Betting Odds and Match Previews for August 19, 2025, Women's Singles
As part of today's Abierto GNP Seguros round of 32 (six matches), No. 23-ranked Linda Noskova and No. 90 Lulu Sun will be matching up at Club Sonoma, Estadio Gnp Seguros in Monterrey, Mexico. In 18 tournaments this year, Noskova is 23-18 and has not won a title. The 24-year-old Sun, who is still seeking her first tournament win of 2025, is 9-18 this year. Here are the betting odds to analyze ahead of the six matches today. Tennis odds courtesy of BetMGM Sportsbook. Odds updated Tuesday at 3:13 AM ET. For a full list of sports betting odds, access USA TODAY Sports Betting Scores Odds Hub. Today's matches at the Abierto GNP Seguros Odds to win the 2025 Abierto GNP Seguros
New York Times
05-08-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Victoria Mboko: The Canadian tennis talent who can't stop winning arrives at her home event
Ripping a backhand past a former Wimbledon quarterfinalist to clinch a first Grand Slam win on the opening day of the French Open is a pretty good way to make tennis fans stand up and take notice. Or maybe Victoria Mboko, the 18-year-old, American-born, Canadian-raised daughter of Congolese parents, has been announcing herself for months now. Maybe folks just weren't listening closely enough. Advertisement Everyone is now, as she backs up her run to the French Open third round with a last-four place at the WTA 1,000 Canadian Open in Montreal, one rung below a Grand Slam. As her Roland-Garros debut approached, Mboko played the same brain game she has been playing through a startling climb up the tennis biosphere. She tells herself that what is happening isn't actually happening. 'Kind of just play it down,' she said during an interview after her 6-1, 7-6(4) win over Lulu Sun of New Zealand on a Sunday May. Three days later, she knocked out rising German Eva Lys 6-4, 6-4, to move into the third round at her first major. Her run ended there in a defeat to Zheng Qinwen, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist, but Mboko had shown everyone who had missed her rise that they should have been paying more attention. 'Pretend like you're playing somewhere else, that you're not at a Grand Slam,' she said of her strategy there. It's another clay-court tournament. That way, I don't put as much pressure on myself and the points. I let loose and I kind of go for my shots a little bit more,' she said. If playing make-believe before walking onto the biggest stages in tennis could lead to Mboko taking a spot next to Bianca Andreescu, Leylah Fernandez, Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Milos Raonic and others in the Canadian tennis firmament, then Mboko probably ought to keep doing it. Her performance in Paris, and then in Montreal, where she has knocked out two-time major champion Coco Gauff and surged into the top 50 of the WTA rankings, showed every bit of what has generated all the buzz about Mboko becoming the latest in a string of Canadians from immigrant families who have made it to the top of the sport. 'We know Canada is a very multicultural country and we are very accepting of everyone,' Andreescu, who has become a mentor to Mboko, said during an interview in Rome. Advertisement 'I think it's a beautiful thing that we're all from different different cultures, different backgrounds, but at the end of the day Tennis Canada really has built this program in the acceptance of everybody, no matter who you are.' The youngest by seven years of four tennis-playing siblings, Mboko has been winning more than just about anyone in professional women's tennis since the start of the year. She finished last year ranked 350th, with her coaches believing fully in her potential but also wanting her to take it slow, given her struggles with knee injuries in recent years. Now they have another problem on their hands. Mboko has won so many matches that she has already played more than she has ever played before. She started the year winning 22 in a row on the ITF World Tennis Tour, two rungs below the WTA Tour. She lost one, then won another five, this time at a WTA 125 event, the next rung up, in Porto. She has won matches in Rome, Ga. and Rome, Italy at the Italian Open. Her record on the year is 49-9, as she prepares to face 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in Montreal. 'I have been doing exactly the same thing I've been doing every other day. I like to keep the same routine when I'm in a tournament,' she said after her win over Gauff, who had beaten her in three sets at the Italian Open. 'I think I'm a little bit superstitious in that way, in that sense, but I just like to keep everything super simple. I like to do the exact same thing every day in a tournament.' 'That's a lot,' Marko Strillic, one of three coaches she works with at the Canadian Tennis Federation, said during an interview at the Italian Open. 'If she keeps winning, you have to figure out a way to manage the schedule so that she doesn't get hurt. This is for the long term.' That was before Mboko cruised through French Open qualifying to earn her main draw debut, and then knocked through Sun as though she knew she would all along. Mboko was all business again against Lys, but for a couple of service breaks she quickly recovered from. Advertisement Her brother Kevin, 27 and a tennis coach in suburban Toronto, said that from the moment she woke up, she set her mind on only one thing: winning. 'She looked at us and said, 'I got to win today,'' he said in an interview after she did just that. 'We were trying to bring her down a little bit, telling her that it's all right, to just go out there and have fun, enjoy the experience. 'She was like 'No, I got to win.' That's how she was during her hit before walking onto the court, and it's how she was through the 79-minute match. Rain, wind, muddy balls, nothing really budged her off her game. 'It's been really calm between the days,' she said. 'That's how my coach wanted it to be.' She woke at a quarter to seven ahead of her match against Lys, ready to roll. There was quick breakfast, a ride to Roland Garros, a physical warm-up and then a 30-minute hit at 9:30 a.m. 'Then I just chilled in the locker room until my match,' she said. All week, all month, really, there has been a 'no big deal' sensibility to Mboko. She credited the presence of her sister and brother for that. 'There is so much happening even behind the scenes,' she said. 'I feel like my family has been doing a good job of keeping me, I guess, isolated from it all. I have just been enjoying the moment. I have been enjoying time with my sister and my brother. I don't have so many people around me, and it's kept me very calm and very comfortable.' At some point, this is going to get complicated, but for Kevin and everyone else closest to Mboko, this rocket ride both is and is not surprising. Her oldest sister Gracia, 28, who has been courtside all event, played tennis for the University of Denver. She said that she and her brothers always knew that their baby sister had something they did not. Gracia recalled a local women's tournament at their home club in Burlington, a city in the Greater Toronto area of Ontario, that she played in when she was 17. Advertisement At the last minute, another slot opened up, and a pro at the club asked Victoria, who was just 9 and had come to watch, if she wanted to play. Victoria jumped at the opportunity and eventually faced her sister. Gracia won, 6-0, 6-0, but the way Victoria behaved, it was as though she had expected the results to go the other way. 'It's that belief in yourself that the very top of the one percent have,' Gracia, a consultant in private equity, said Sunday after watching her sister win. 'It's: 'not only should I win this match, I'm going to go do it.' And then she does it.' At least she does now. For the past couple of years, a knee injury caused by both rapid growth and a bad fall on a tennis court has made that difficult. She spent much of last year based in Belgium at the academy of Justine Henin, the former world No. 1 and four-time French Open champion. She played little for the first six months of the year. Getting healthy was the priority. Even then, she ended the year losing more than she won, dropping three of her last four matches. 'Last year ended very poorly,' said Kevin. 'I didn't see any of this coming. No one did.' Their father, Cyprien, a retired mechanical engineer who worked nights in part so that he could drive his children to their tennis obligations, was there too. Victoria's mother, Godée, an accountant, was back home, dealing with a heavy end-of-the-month workload, as was her other brother, David, a 25-year-old data scientist. The Mbokos moved from the Democratic Republic of Congo nearly three decades ago, to escape the First and Second Congo Wars of the mid-1990s. Visa issues kept the family separated, with Godée in Montreal and Cyprien in North Carolina. Godée then moved to N.C., where the family lived for several years and where Victoria was born, before all moving to Toronto when she was still a baby. Advertisement Victoria didn't let the losses in the final months of 2024 get to her. 'I just thought new year, new me,' she said during an interview in Rome. She decided to play like the version of herself that she has long believed in: an aggressive, athletic player who likes to take control of points and dictate the action. In Miami, she beat Camila Osorio, a 23-year-old tour mainstay, and pushed Paula Badosa, the No. 10 seed at Roland-Garros, to a third-set tiebreak. Mboko has also showed off a precocious variety, mixing in drop shots and slices, including a hard, slicing forehand. Her coach is Nathalie Tauziat, who got to No. 3 in the world with a game moulded around variety. But Mboko can also crack her serve at 120 mph. Not surprisingly, she grew up worshipping Serena Williams. In Rome, she cruised through the first set in her second-round match against Gauff, lacing backhands and forehands through the court on the Campo Centrale like a seasoned veteran. Gauff turned the match into one of her long-distance track races, getting so many balls back that Mboko was huffing and puffing between every point. But the world No. 2 came away seriously impressed. She 'felt like playing myself,' Gauff said in a huddle after the match, especially with how well Mboko covered the court. 'On the movement, I would say she's up there with me on that,' Gauff, probably the best mover in the sport, said. Gracia Mboko said her sister came away from that loss both devastated and determined. 'She told me she was so out of steam, that she couldn't believe how Coco was getting every ball back,' she said Sunday. 'She kept saying, 'I got to get in shape.' It motivated her.' It certainly did. When she faced a double-fault-stricken version of Gauff in Montreal, she kept her foot on the accelerator after winning the first set 6-1. She knew that Gauff would raise her level, try to make her nervous, try to impose her experience on the match. Mboko didn't let her. She stayed even until 5-4, then broke Gauff to win the second set and the match. Advertisement Mboko learned plenty from that first loss to Gauff. She knew she had let the world No. 2's grit frustrate her, thinking about the last point when she was supposed to be thinking about the next one. Her coaches are onto this. 'They'll start to snap me right back into it,' she said. 'They'll actually say: 'stay present, stay focused, or close it right here.'' With 49 wins in a year, Mboko isn't exactly unfamiliar with closing it. Now she is doing it on the biggest stage in the sport.
RNZ News
01-08-2025
- Sport
- RNZ News
Tennis: Auckland's tennis centre to get revamp ahead of next year's Classic
New Zealand tennis player Lulu Sun in front of a stand that will be demolished at Auckland Arena Photo: Supplied The demolition of an aging grandstand will increase the crowd capacity at the home of the ASB Classic, ahead of next year's tennis tournament and bring the venue in line with international requirements. A grant from Auckland Council's Sport and Recreation Facilities Investment Fund will allow Tennis Auckland to demolish the Robinson Grandstand at the southern end of the arena on Stanley street, which is one step towards getting a long-debated roof for centre court . The Robinson Grandstand, built in 1962, has "come to the end of its useful life" and will be replaced with a removable grandstand in place in time for the ASB Classic on 5 January, 2026. The new removable structure will allow the tournament organisers to ensure the Manuka Doctor Arena - formerly the ASB Tennis Centre - meets updated requirements from world tennis governing bodies WTA and ATP. In recent times, the ASB Classic has received dispensation to host the tournament due to the courts not meeting minimum court size and capacity for spectators also falling short of the minimum requirements. ASB Classic tournament director Nicolas Lamperin said the new stand, like those used in UK tournaments including the HSBC Championships at The Queen's Club, will be a significant positive development for the tournament. "We have had dispensation on minimum court size, but this has become challenging," Lamperin said. "We also need the extra capacity and the planned grandstand will provide an excellent addition for fans at the tournament. I am sure it will help attract some players and will be well received by all players." Work will start immediately on the demolition of the Robinson Stand, with council funding combined with a grant from Grassroots Trust. The court extension would allow for the potential to host other sports events, including basketball, netball, volleyball and beach volleyball. Tennis Auckland chief executive officer Rohan West said the new stand would accommodate seating to ensure the arena meets the ATP criteria and had the flexibility to offer a range of options from standard seats to high-end padded seats. West said Tennis Auckland was working "diligently" on its vision of a roof for the centre court, with the new grandstand part of that overall concept. "The ASB Classic is the largest driver of economic growth on Auckland's event calendar," West said. "Our overall vision for the Manuka Doctor Arena is a crucial way for the ASB Classic to compete against competition from more modern venues in Australia, Asia and the Middle East." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Newsroom
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Newsroom
How Lydia Ko and co have teed up a new high for women's sport
The dominance of New Zealand's female athletes at the Paris Olympics, alongside the White Ferns' unexpected success at last year's T20 World Cup, has helped lift coverage of women's sport in New Zealand to a level that sports leaders hope will be the new norm. The latest Sports Media and Gender Study, which tracked gender balance and visibility in sports news across 2024, shows 27 percent of all stories were dedicated to women's sport. That's up one point from 2023, when Aotearoa hosted the FIFA Women's World Cup, but more importantly, it's just shy of the all-time high of 28 percent reached during the landmark year of 2022, when both the Women's Cricket and Rugby World Cups were played here. That makes the latest 27 percent figure all the more notable, with the key events for Kiwi athletes last year – the Olympics, Paralympics and cricket World Cups – all held offshore. It's a significant jump from the 15 percent recorded for women when the study began five years ago. So is this the new normal? Will coverage of women's sport continue to hover in the mid-20s? Sport New Zealand's CEO, Raelene Castle, would like to think so. 'I think this will be the new baseline,' she says. 'There's awareness, profile and a shift in thinking around female sport now, and the great results keep coming for our women. 'We'd expect everyone to report on them and celebrate them, because that drives positivity for the country. And I hope it continues to grow from here. I'd still like to see it up at 30 or 35 percent.' Lulu Sun had a breakthrough year in 2024, reaching the quarterfinals of Wimbledon, and playing at the Paris Olympics. Photo: Dom Thomas Dame Lydia Ko was well ahead of the rest of the field of female athletes mentioned in sports coverage throughout 2024. The golfer's name appeared twice as often as in 2023 – thanks to her Olympic gold medal, British Open victory and induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Lulu Sun, the tennis world's Newcomer of the Year, was second, ahead of Dame Lisa Carrington, despite her haul of three Olympic golds. But the news wasn't all positive. While gender balance – the share of coverage devoted to women's sport – continues to slowly rise, visibility of females keeps sliding. The report found the proportion of female athletes, coaches, officials and fans featured in media coverage in 2024 had declined (to 23 percent), while the representation of men increased. The drop in visibility was driven by three key trends: Strong performances by our male footballers (like the Wellington Phoenix), while coverage of the women's game dropped off sharply after the 2023 FIFA World Cup here. A rise in coverage of high-profile events traditionally dominated by men – like Liam Lawson's entry into Formula 1. Increased media attention on a broader mix of women's sports, particularly individual or pairs of athletes in tennis, golf, cycling, canoe sprint and swimming – which led to fewer female voices and sources used. Gender balance and visibility in NZ sports media over the five years of the study. Graphic: Isentia/Sport NZ The visibility gap could be closed, Castle says, simply by making broadcast coverage of women's sport more regular and sustained. 'The single-biggest change for women's sport will be week-in, week-out content in our lounge rooms, with superstars – like Caitlin Clark in the WNBA – who drive the curiosity and interest,' she says. 'It's the single thing that will ultimately move the dial in the media landscape. 'And regular coverage for our women is growing – the Warriors Women in the NRLW, Super Rugby Aupiki, the Phoenix Women in the A League, the White Ferns playing in Australia's Big Bash League. They live in our lounge rooms every week and that's what drives the media to report on it, because you're involved in consistent competition over a season, as opposed to a short two-week event.' Cricket's six percent rise in gender balance – driven by the White Ferns' T20 Cup win in October – is now reflected in higher viewership for women's cricket and growing participation at grassroots level. Jess Davidson, head of female engagement at NZ Cricket, says the White Ferns' 2024-25 international summer saw a 50 percent increase in the T20 viewing audience. The White Ferns celebrate beating South Africa in last year's T20 World Cup final in Dubai. 'They won the World Cup, and suddenly there's an elevated platform and people want to know how the White Ferns are going,' she says. 'The elevated coverage builds familiarity – particularly for young women and girls – helping them relate to the White Ferns, and they imagine themselves in that position one day. It boosts visibility and reinforces that the sport belongs to them just as much as it does to boys and men. 'By the end of the 2024-25 season, we'd seen a 15 percent increase in the total number of women and girls playing across all formats – which is awesome. And the White Ferns are off to India for the Women's Cricket World Cup in September, so it's all go.' It wasn't just international cricket that garnered more attention – there was more reporting on domestic teams like the Auckland Hearts and Wellington Blaze. 'For me, that's where the impact lies, with our local competitions getting the coverage they deserve,' says Davidson, who sees the 27 percent gender balance statistic as a benchmark to build from. During the Paris Olympics, female athletes received 54 percent of the coverage, up three points from the Tokyo Games in 2021. That's fitting, given women dominated New Zealand's success in Paris, claiming 13 of the 20 medals, and eight of the 10 golds – a trend that's held since Rio 2016. Across all sports media during the Games period – when the All Blacks lost to Argentina and the Black Caps missed the playoffs at the men's T20 World Cup – women's sports coverage reached 45 percent. The CEO of the NZ Olympic Committee, Nicki Nicol, says the findings are encouraging – particularly as the organisation has been advocating for fair and inclusive media portrayal for the past decade. 'We're big proponents of 'if you can see it, you can be it', so how do we share compelling female stories with the media? In our video and news releases, photos and press conference opportunities, we always make sure it's gender balanced,' she says. 'When it's performance based, then obviously the cream rises to the top.' Diving into their own research during last year's Olympics, the NZOC analysed individual media coverage and found seven of the top 10 most-covered athletes were women. Leading the pack was flagbearer Dame Lisa Carrington, followed closely by cyclist Ellesse Andrews, who collected two golds and a silver. The NZOC research into the most-covered Kiwi athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Graphic: Isentia/NZOC 'In our social media content, 60 percent of our coverage was on female athletes, and eight of the 10 most engaged social posts featured female athletes. And eight of the 10 gold medals at Paris were won by women. So, what we're seeing is the affinity to connect,' Nicol says. The importance of building personalities and telling the backstories of sportswomen is obvious. 'Some of our female athletes are superstars and that makes a huge difference because they carry the conversation, which helps with the coverage,' Castle says. 'We're getting to know more about Dame Lisa Carrington, and Black Ferns like Ruby Tui, Jorja Miller and Ruahei Demant, who's a lawyer away from the rugby field. Knowing the personalities behind the players makes people turn on the TV to watch their favourite players.' But there's pressure in sports newsrooms that have been decimated by restructuring in recent years to report anything outside of team announcements and match reports. That's where sports organisations have stepped up their own social media coverage – to appeal to Gen Z and Gen Alpha – or are producing content to share with media, trying to get cut-through. Stories produced by female reporters in sports newsrooms continues to fall – down to 12 percent – while female presenters on our screens dropped below half (from 54 percent to 43 percent). In other findings from the Sport NZ report, netball returned to the top of the list as the most covered female sport (on 15 percent), and football took the biggest dive – from 29 percent when the World Cup was played here in 2023, to nine percent a year later. Despite the first-ever Women's America's Cup raced in 2024, and having females figure prominently in SailGP crews, the gender balance in reporting sailing rose only slightly (from 14.4 percent to 16.9 percent). Castle is 'absolutely optimistic' that women's sport will continue to make progress. She witnessed it at the Laurie O'Reilly Cup clash between the Black Ferns and the Wallaroos in Wellington last weekend, part of a double-header with the All Blacks v France test straight afterwards. 'There would have been 20,000 people in the stadium by halftime in the Black Ferns' test,' she says. 'That's huge – usually you'd see around 3000 with everyone flying in the gates in the final minutes for the All Blacks' test.' Read the full Media and Gender Report here LockerRoom has been Newsroom's sports section exclusively covering women in sport since 2018.
RNZ News
03-07-2025
- Sport
- RNZ News
Wimbledon over for Lulu Sun with doubles exit
Lulu Sun has had an early exit from Wimbledon. Photo: PHOTOSPORT New Zealander Lulu Sun's Wimbledon has ended early, with her elimination from the doubles in the first round. Sun, who was beaten in the first round of the singles earlier this week, teamed with Leylah Fernandez in the doubles, but they were beaten 6-2 6-1 by sixth Asia Muhammad (US) and Demi Schuurs (Netherlands). Despite the decisive scoreline, the match took one hour and 13 minutes, with Sun and Canadian Fernandez attacking hard but failing to convert five break points. Sun was one of the big stories at last year's tournament , making the quarterfinals after starting as a qualifier, but this year's event has been a short-lived affair. She was beaten 6-4 6-4 by Marie Bouzkova in the first round of the singles on Tuesday. Sun was ranked 68th as a singles player at the start of the tournament but faces a rankings drop following her early exit. Sun said she and Fernandez had a difficult draw in the doubles. "Not really a first-round match-up you want to face,'' she told Tennis NZ. "But it was also not the best match from me and Leylah. We had a lot of opportunities in the first part of the first set, and then they started to be the aggressor, so they didn't give us a lot of chances when they came forward, and they were varying the different types of balls to make it hard to rally with them." Sun said despite her results this week she loved playing on grass again. "But unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of wins. I did get some good matches here and there, not as in wins, but against good opponents and I can potentially turn that and work on it for the end of the season to create something." Fellow New Zealander Erin Routliffe and regular partner Gaby Dabrowski, who won their first round doubles match against China's Wang Xinyu and Zheng Saisai 6-1 6-4 on Thursday, will play Polina Kudermetova (Russia) and Zeynep Sonmez (Turkey) in the second round. In the men's doubles, Michael Venus and Croatian Nikola Mektic advanced from the first round with a 6-4 7-6 victory over Briton Lui Maxted and Connor Thomson in a tight match that lasted one hour 25 minutes. The eighth seeds, Venus and Mektic will play Brazilians Rafael Matos and Marcelo Melo in the second round.
