We missed it: 15-year-old Mboko reaches $25K final

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MASSIVE miss by Open Court last week, in our #CanucksThisWeek post

She was a wild card (not entered in the qualifying) at an ITF tournament in Monastir, Tunisia.

We went through the various ITF draws, as we do every week, but before they posted the main draw.

And we missed it.

Total whiff.

But 15-year-old Victoria Mboko, a finalist in the girls’ doubles at the junior Australian Open in January with countrywoman Kayla Cross, went all the way to the final at a $25,000 ITF in Monastir, Tunisia.

(Hey, as a small consolation prize, she gets a post all to herself).

Impressive wins

Probably her most impressive victory was her first one – defeating No. 3 seed Daria Snigur in straight sets in the first round.

Snigur, 20, is ranked No. 143 this week. – more than 1,000 spots above Mboko and just off a career high reached in February.

In 2019, she won the Roehampton-Wimbledon junior girls’ singles doubleheader as an unseeded player.

Zhu Lin, 28, is ranked No. 106 (and was at a career-high No. 69 before the pandemic stopped her momentum. She’s played in 11 Grand Slam singles main draws. And coincidentally, she was the last player Genie Bouchard faced before her shoulder took her out of action last March.

In other words, she’s an experienced, quality WTA-Tour level player. And Mboko took her to 6-4 in the third set before bowing out.

Ranking will soar next week

Mboko is ranked No. 1460 this week – only her second week on the WTA Tour singles chart, after earning her first five points a few weeks ago.

Next Monday, she’ll leap into the top 800 with 35 points, with half or less the number ot tournaments of all the other players who have that many points.

Here is Mboko last November, at the 18-and-under Eddie Herr event in Bradenton, Fla.