Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko took down top-seeded American Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday, thrilling the home crowd as she reached the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 tournament in Montreal.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old wild card saved all four break points she faced, and broke reigning French Open champion Gauff three times on the way to a comprehensive victory in just 62 minutes.<\/p>\n
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“I don’t even know what to say still, I was kind of shocked about it all,” said Mboko, adding that the support of the home crowd had buoyed her late in the second set.<\/p>\n
“I just remember in the last game when I was up 5-4, the crowd kind of started cheering even louder, and everything got super noisy,” she said. “I kind of used that as more fuel for myself and to pump myself up a little bit more.<\/p>\n
“I think it helped me tremendously, especially in the last game, since they were so encouraging me. It was just amazing.”<\/p>\n
Mboko started the season ranked 333rd in the world and has worked her way up to 85 but the win over Gauff — who she took to three sets in Rome in May — is the biggest win of her career.<\/p>\n
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“Playing Coco is obviously never easy. She’s number two in the world, and it has been such a great opportunity for me to play against someone like her,” Mboko said. “I was just happy I kept my composure today and I pulled it through.”<\/p>\n
Gauff, who had a combined 37 double faults as she struggled through her first two matches, was caught flat-footed as the Canadian teen raced through the first set in 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
Gauff buckled down in the second, but she was unable to convert three break chances in the seventh game — coming up short on a drop shot and smacking a forehand into the net on the first two.<\/p>\n
She gained anther chance only to hit a service return long, then flew a volley wide to give Mboko a game point, duly converted when Gauff fired a forehand long.<\/p>\n
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Down 15-30 in the ninth game, Mboko leveled at 30-30 with a blistering backhand, then closed out the hold for a 5-4 lead.<\/p>\n
Serving to stay in the match, Gauff fell in a quick 0-30 hole and double-faulted to give Mboko a match point, on which the American hit a backhand into the net.<\/p>\n
“She played a really great match, that’s basically it,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t played the best in this tournament, so I knew that it would be tough. I just felt like I could do better today, but I also knew that if I took my foot off the gas a little bit that she would take advantage of those moments, and she did.”<\/p>\n
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Mboko will next play Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, who won a see-saw battle with China’s Zhu Lin 7-5, 1-6, 6-2.<\/p>\n
– Rybakina hangs on –<\/p>\n
Former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina out-lasted Dayana Yastremska 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 to book a quarter-final clash with Marta Kostyuk.<\/p>\n
Kazakhstan’s Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion who won her first title in more than a year at Strasbourg in May, was slowed by nine double faults.<\/p>\n
But she ultimately had enough to get past Ukraine’s Yastremska, breaking her twice in the third set and sealing it on her fourth match point.<\/p>\n
She’ll face another Ukrainian in Kostyuk, who came from behind to beat American McCartney Kessler 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n
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