I'm so excited for Mboko 18 years old with all the confidence in the world heading into the US Open. Let's hope she gets a decent draw there and has a nice deep run!
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Just completed watching the match. Amazing resilience from Victoria today, she goes down a set for the 2nd match in a row, hits the reset button and takes over the match. She never gives up on any game, she can be down love-40 in a game and still continues to fight for every point.
Game 4 in set 3 decided the match, saving four break points and managing to hold a game that lasted over 10 minutes broke Osaka's spirit. Just a strange match from Naomi, she started fast serving trying to catch Victoria off guard and it didn't work and then she started going for wild winners from behind the baseline. Not sure what flipped the switch, but it was just very odd.
They mentioned on the broadcast that Vicky wasn't hitting any kick serves, that's likely due to her wrist injury as you need to have a good wrist snap and pronation to hit an effective kick serve and it likely was giving her too much pain to attempt such a wrist motion.
At any rate, what a 12 days of tennis. I don't think she plays Cincinnati now (maybe it's already been announced), but the smart move would be to rest that wrist and get ready for the US Open.
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2025 has been a banner year for our Canadian tennis heroes:
Felix - 2 trophies and won the Hopman Cup with Bianca
Denis - 2 trophies
Gabriel - 1 trophy
Leylah - 1 trophy
Bianca - Won the Hopman Cup as mentioned above with Felix
Victoria - 1 trophy and it being the biggest trophy of the season (Masters 1000) to boot
Gaby Dabrowski - 1 trophy with partner Erin Routliffe
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I've been pretty bullish on Shelton. He's starting to hit his stride. Played some excellent tennis in Toronto and while I don't think he will win the US Open this year I feel it's only a matter of which year he wins one.
Par for the course with her. I know she has anxiety and depression issues but it's really not that hard to congratulate your opponent after a loss or attend a press conference to answer some generic media questions especially given the amount of money she gets paid. She was basically sulking during the second set forward and I believe the sport deserves better than that in a masters 1000 final.
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I've been pretty bullish on Shelton. He's starting to hit his stride. Played some excellent tennis in Toronto and while I don't think he will win the US Open this year I feel it's only a matter of which year he wins one.
Ben has really improved his defense in the last 12 month or so, he already has one of the best serves on tour and hits big ground strokes on both wings. The biggest obstacles to that elusive grand slam are named Sinner and Alcaraz, beating one of them is tough enough, but you might have to beat both of them. Maybe somebody else could help Ben out in his quest?
It's a shame there's quite a few tennis fans out there that don't like Shelton. Yes he can be brash and overly enthusiastic but I think he's generally a good kid, a good sport, and the tour needs personalities like him.
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Par for the course with her. I know she has anxiety and depression issues but it's really not that hard to congratulate your opponent after a loss or attend a press conference to answer some generic media questions especially given the amount of money she gets paid. She was basically sulking during the second set forward and I believe the sport deserves better than that in a masters 1000 final.
Regardless of her past issues that display was classless and just plain ignorant by Osaka. You're a pro athlete and that comes with obligations such as speaking after a tough loss and fighting through some adversity like somewhat hostile crowds....which is debatable as people were even cheering for her before she spoke!
I am at the point now where I think she's actually just a terrible person for continued and repeated instances like this. You can't blame this behavior on anxiety and depression. She's a sore loser and thinks she's a lot better of player than she actually is now.
Good on Mboko for displaying the fight of a champion the last two matches, just refusing to lose. With her serve leaving her for large parts of both matches, it would have been really easy to lose to two good opponents. Very excited to see where she can take this with a game that is only going to improve from here.
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I hate to tell you this, but I’ve just launched an air biscuit
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"That wasn't nice" - Elena Rybakina makes feelings clear on 'tough' atmosphere created by crowd support for local Victoria Mboko in Canadian Open SF https://share.google/61KDsirU5OPXMAvUB
Quote:
"Yeah, that wasn't nice, of course. I played in a lot of situations where the crowd was supporting the player, but I would say that here it was pretty tough from very beginning. I already felt it from the first game we played, and especially when it's in between the serves," Rybakina said.
"It is what it is. This is something I was kind of expecting, and definitely it didn't depend anyhow on my serve or in the mistakes I did or wrong choices. It was obvious that the crowd is going to cheer for their player," she added.
1 up and 1 down thus far today - Felix won in straight sets, but Leylah lost in straight sets. Costly loss for Leylah who had quite a few points to defend and she might not be seeded at the US Open.
Edit: Live rankings has Leylah on the cusp at #32
Last edited by dash_pinched; 08-09-2025 at 01:08 PM.
