Latest news with #SummerMcIntosh
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Victoria Mboko's Montreal magic: the Canadian teen who toppled four grand slam champions
Canada was still catching its collective breath from Summer McIntosh's record-breaking swims when 18-year-old Victoria Mboko grabbed the spotlight at the National Bank Open and never let go. In front of a sold-out crowd in Montreal, the 85th-ranked Canadian wildcard finished her Cinderella title run on Thursday night by beating former world No 1 Naomi Osaka 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 to win her first WTA Tour title. Prolonged cheers for Mboko interrupted play 30 minutes into the men's final being played concurrently 330 miles west in her hometown of Toronto. 'I guess the Canadian player won in Montreal,' chair umpire Fergus Murphy explained to the confused players. That's the Mboko effect. With wins over four-time grand slam champion Osaka, reigning Roland Garros champion, and world No 2 Coco Gauff, 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, and 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, Mboko became just the third teen in the open era to oust four major champions at a WTA event. She's the youngest since Serena Williams ran the table to win the 1999 US Open. If you find yourself in a 'first since' or 'youngest since' Serena stat, you know you've done something special. 'I think my biggest takeaway is the sky's the limit,' Mboko told the Guardian after the win. 'I never would have thought I would win a WTA 1000 so soon, that this would be my first WTA title, too.' Mboko started the year ranked outside the top 300 and proceeded to win the first 20 matches she played, all in straight sets, and sweeping up five ITF titles in the first three months of the season. The bulk of her wins came at professional tennis' minor league equivalent, but that stretch of play showed what Mboko could do if she got on a roll. Maya Joint is a 19-year-old Australian who has already won two WTA titles in her breakout season. Along with Mboko and No 5 Mirra Andreeva, the trio are the only teenagers in the WTA's top 90. 'Winning titles gives you a lot of confidence that you can do it,' Joint told the Guardian, 'that you can win that many matches in a row and stay focused for that long.' Mboko's game has proven to be a difficult Rubik's Cube to solve, even for the game's best. It is as intelligent as it is physical, a potent blend of power and discipline. She can overwhelm her opponents with power or use her speed and defense to trap them into errors. The choice, on any given day, is hers. 'She's very athletic,' said top-seeded Gauff after Mboko handed her a 6-1, 6-4 exit in the round of 16. 'She's a great ball striker, and she seems pretty positive out there on the court, doesn't get really too negative.' 'I don't know her too well, but I've gotten to talk to her a little bit over the course since Rome. I think she has a great support system around her, and I think that's important when you're young and on tour.' Mboko's coach Nathalie Tauziat watched from the sidelines as her charge learned in real time how to compete and manage stress. So long as she kept her head, Tauziat told her, the talented teen was always in with a shot. Montreal proved to be her showcase. Her win over Osaka was her third come-from-behind win of the tournament. In the semi-finals, she saved a match point to stun No 3 seed Rybakina in a third-set tiebreak. 'In the beginning of the year when I was winning a lot of matches and tournaments, I just had a lot of confidence in myself, to be honest,' Mboko said. 'I don't know where that confidence came from, maybe it was just self-belief. I tried to carry that momentum as much as I possibly could.' Mboko's parents, Cyprien Mboko and Godee Kitadi, fled the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the political turmoil in 1999 and emigrated to the United States. Victoria was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, before the family relocated to Toronto. Her older siblings all played tennis, with her sister Gracia and brother Kevin being good enough to play at the collegiate level. She spent her summers running around the grounds at the National Bank Open chasing autographs and photos with her favorite players like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils. She even has a photo of herself at eight years old holding a replica of the trophy. Ten years on, she's no longer a pretender. Hours after the trophy ceremony, Mboko still couldn't believe she had her hands on the real thing. She will leave Montreal as one of the 25 best players on the WTA Tour, ranked at an astonishing No 24. When asked whether she feels like one of the 25 best players in the world, Mboko's humility kicked in. 'I don't think I could say yes to that, to be honest,' she said. 'It happens, and I honestly think everything's been happening so fast that I don't really have time to process it, let alone look at the rankings. 'I feel like when I settle down a little bit and kind of realize what has just happened, so many things will change and I'll have a different perspective going forward.' That perspective now shifts to the US Open, a tournament that has been very good to the Canadians. In 2019, a 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu became Canada's first grand slam singles champion there. Two years later, Leylah Annie Fernandez stormed into the final. Could Mboko follow their well-worn path? She certainly isn't ruling it out. 'When I started playing on the WTA Tour, I never thought in my head if I belonged or not because I just thought, a match is just a match,' Mboko said. 'I always knew everyone was really good, but I felt that at the end of the day, anything is possible.'
Global News
4 days ago
- Sport
- Global News
Concerns raised over Canada's aging aquatic facilities
Competitive swimming clubs are raising the alarm that communities across Canada are dealing with aging aquatic facilities and as a result, the chance for Canadians to reach elite swimming levels is diminishing. 'What happens after every Olympic and Paralympic Games is we have so many boys and girls who want to be the next Summer McIntosh or the next Josh Liendo,' Jocelyn Jay with Swimming Canada told Global News. According to the organization that governs competitive swimming in Canada, there are 5,060 publicly-owned pools as of 2020. More than half are near the end of their life. 'I think what's scary is down the road, based on the influx of interest, based on the success of our high-performance programs, we're not going to have the pools and the lane space to be able to manage the numbers that are interested,' Jay added. Story continues below advertisement 1:34 Olympic-length pool not feasible for a new Vancouver Aquatic Centre staff say The Vancouver Aquatic Centre's Olympic-length pool will be replaced with a 25-metre pool despite opposition from the swimming community. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'I think swimming in general will decline,' Kelly Taitinger with Dolphins Swim Club said. 'If you take a 50-metre pool and you shut it down for three years and you've got Hillcrest, which is the only other 50-metre pool that the city runs, I think the lessons — they say they have 8,000 on the wait list now — it's going to probably double. 'If that's the case in three years you are going to see a decline in people who even learn how to swim.' Swimming Canada said it would like to see a national strategy that would make funding available to municipalities for pools and recreation centres, saying swimming is an important life skill.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
A world championship medalist at 12 years old? Meet Chinese swimming prodigy Yu Zidi
At age 12, surrounded by seasoned veterans, Summer McIntosh swam the 400-meter individual medley at the 2019 Canadian Trials in an eye-opening time of 4 minutes, 50.21 seconds. Yu Zidi just eclipsed that time by more than 16 seconds. At age 12, competing at a prestigious junior meet in Toronto, McIntosh swam the 200 IM in a speedy 2:20.84. Yu just outclassed that time by more than 11 seconds. Those staggering comparisons to McIntosh, who won three gold medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, help put into perspective how insanely fast China's 12-year-old swimming prodigy already is. Not only is Yu achieving feats no other pre-teen girl ever has, she is holding her own against the world's best swimmers before she's even old enough to complete middle school. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] Yu became the youngest swimmer ever to medal at the World Aquatics Championships last Thursday in Singapore when she helped China take bronze in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. While Yu did not swim in the final, she qualified for a medal after swimming the first leg in the prelims earlier in the day. Remarkably, Yu's medal-winning effort in the relay wasn't her most jaw-dropping achievement of her week in Singapore. Yu, who won't turn 13 until October, also took fourth place in three individual events, missing the podium by 0.06 seconds in the women's 200-meter IM on Monday, by 0.31 seconds in the women's 200-meter butterfly on Thursday and by 0.50 seconds in the women's 400-meter IM on Sunday. Swimming that fast on a global stage transformed Yu from a Chinese star to a global curiosity. Media outlets hailed Yu as the heir to McIntosh, the 18-year-old Canadian sensation who took four golds and a bronze in Singapore. Accomplished swimmers from around the world heaped praise on the Chinese preteen known for her signature cartoon dog swim cap. 'Her 12-year-old times are much faster than mine at that age,' Romanian freestyle star David Popovici told China Daily. "Everyone is a bit scared of her,' celebrated Japanese swimmer Rikako Ikee told Chinese state media. In a recent feature story published by China's state-run news agency, Yu revealed that she only began swimming at age 6. Her family took her to a water park that summer to help her endure the heat in her hometown of Baoding about 100 miles south of Beijing. 'I enjoyed the coolness of the water and spent a lot of time in different small pools for kids,' Yu said. 'One day, a coach approached me and asked if I wanted to swim faster. I then joined a daily swimming class for kids for the rest of the summer.' What started as a hobby soon became more than that. A lot more. Yu first hit the headlines last year when she missed out on an Olympic qualifying time for Paris by only two seconds as an 11-year-old. Then at China's national championships in May, Yu took second place in the 200-meter IM in 2:10.63, the fastest time ever recorded in the discipline by a 12-year-old, male or female. World Aquatics rules require an athlete to be at least 14 years old to compete at a global championship, but there's a caveat. Swimmers who meet the A qualification standard in an event are granted access to the competition regardless of their age. That's how Yu secured an invitation to Singapore. That's how she earned the chance to cement herself as swimming's next big thing. Will Yu continue her climb to the top of her sport as the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles approach? That seems likely but not guaranteed. Swimming careers seldom follow linear trajectories. Plenty of teen phenoms have plateaued or even burnt out before their 20th birthdays. In the story by Chinese state-run news agency, Yu acknowledged she too has struggled to balance training and academics. "I almost gave up swimming before the national championships last year due to exhaustion from training and studies,' she said. 'Fortunately, thanks to my coaches, teammates, friends and parents, I realized swimming is an integral part of my life, and I cannot give it up." What is clear is that at age 12, Yu is already among the best in the world. McIntosh was 14 at her first Olympics. Katie Ledecky was 15. Yu is ascending at an even more unfathomable rate.
CTV News
6 days ago
- Sport
- CTV News
‘We are in a facility crisis': Swimming Canada urges government funding as Summer McIntosh wins four
Watch Swimming Canada associate director Jocelyn Jay on Canada's pool crisis and how government support can help to train the next Summer McIntosh.
USA Today
7 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Best of Team Canada Olympic swimmer Summer McIntosh in images
There was a star in the Swimming World Championships and she comes from a country more known for a sport played on frozen water than in a swimming pool. Canada's Summer McIntosh won four gold medals at the event and finished third in her fifth. McIntosh became the second female swimmer to win four individual golds at a single worlds — taking the 400m freestyle, 200m IM 400 IM and 200m butterfly. She took bronze in the 800m free 'I think it was very obvious that my goal was five golds,' McIntosh, who painted five of her fingernails gold before the meet, said, according to World Aquatics. 'Time just didn't matter. I just wanted to get my hand on the wall the first five times. I fell short of that, but I think it's just going to keep me hungry ... Even if I were to get five golds, I would still want more.' Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh Summer McIntosh
