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FLUSHING MEADOWS, New York – Barbora Krejcikova will be the fifth former Grand Slam champion 18-year-old Victoria Mboko has played in the last month.

She beat the first four in Montreal, on her way to an unlikely but brilliant first WTA Tour title.

But in her first match since then, she takes the court against Krejcikova in Louis Armstrong Stadium, a bit court, at 11 a.m. not having played a match since Montreal.

We previewed this, and wrote about how her life has changed since that magical 12 days à Montréal, for the Canadian Press.

Practice with the biggies

In addition to a session with 2023 US Open champ Coco Gauff on Sunday (more on that later today), she also hit with 2021 champion Emma Raducanu during this pre-tournament prep period.

It was Sinner on P1, Alcaraz on P2, and then … Raducanu and Mboko on P3, right next them.

heady company indeed.

The previous day, there was a bit of an “opposite ends of the spectrum” practice with Caroline Garcia.

Garcia, who is still just 31, is playing the final tournament of her career at the US Open – the place she reached the junior final back in 2011.

And Mboko is playing the first of what should be many US Opens.

Here’s what that looked like.