Victoria Mboko added some Billie Jean King Cup heroics to her lengthy list of 2025 accomplishments on Saturday in Monterrey, Mexico, scoring two points for Team Canada as the Canucks fought back to beat Denmark 2-1 in their first play-off tie.
Canada found themselves down 1-0 after a heartbreaking loss for Cadence Brace in the opening singles match but Mboko led the Canadians back, winning her singles match in straight sets before teaming up with Gabriela Dabrowski to win the doubles.
Group A will be decided on Sunday when Canada takes on hosts Mexico, who also beat Denmark 2-1 on Friday. The winner of that tie will finish atop the group and advance to the 2026 Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers.
Coming into her singles match with no margin for error, Mboko stepped up. She overcame a slow start in her singles match to give the Canadians life with a 7-5, 6-3 win. Once she found her game, the Canadian mostly cruised. She won 86 per cent of her first-serve points and did not face a break point after her second service game. She created 12 break point chances on Svendsen’s serve, converting five.
Like the first match, break opportunities came early and often to start the second singles. Mboko missed a return on break point in the opening game before Svendsen broke in the following game to go up 2-0. The Canadian responded with a break of her own, only to fall behind 15-40 in her next service game, ultimately being broken again. This time, the Dane consolidated and led by as much as 5-2 in the first set.
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Svendsen was in control and had the set on her racquet serving at 5-3, 40-30, but Mboko saved the set point in impressive fashion, capped off with a smash winner, and that completely flipped the momentum. Starting with the set-point save, Mboko won 15 of the last 17 points in the set, breaking back when the Dane double faulted. She then held to love, broke again when Svendsen missed a forehand to go up 6-5, and finally served out the set to love.
Mboko kept putting pressure on in the second set but it took some time to secure the breakthrough. The Canadian missed a forehand long on break point at 2-2 and then missed her first two chances in the seventh game when she went up 15-40. However, after the Dane fought back to deuce, she could not handle a return from Mboko and gave her another break point. This time, Svendsen missed a backhand to give the teen a 4-3 lead.
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Once she had the break, Mboko stepped even harder on the gas. She moved within a game of victory with a hold to love and then went back to work on the Dane’s serve. After fighting to deuce and saving a couple of game points, Mboko teed off on back-to-back returns that Svendsen could not handle to seal the win and level the tie.
Dabrowski, Mboko Slam the Door
With the tie on the line, Gabriela Dabrowski and Mboko played a near-perfect match to close it out for Canada with a straight-set win over Emma Kamper and Svendsen. A seven-game run that spanned both sets gave them a lead they never came close to relinquishing, ultimately wrapping up the tie with a 6-2, 6-4 victory.
It was Dabrowski’s first time playing a match for Team Canada in two years. Her last match in Billie Jean King Cup competition was the 2023 semifinals against Czechia. The victory was her 16th in doubles for Canada at the team event, tying her with her own captain Marie-Ève Pelletier for the second-most by a Canadian in the competition.
Dabrowski and Mboko dominated the doubles from start to finish. They faced little pressure on serve, losing just seven total points on their own delivery and never facing a break point. They broke three times on seven opportunities.
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After all four women held their opening service games, the Canadians went to work on return their second times seeing each Dane serve. At 2-2, Svendsen fell behind 15-40 and Mboko, staring down the same serve she had just broken five times in singles, blasted a backhand return winner down the line to secure the first break of the match.
When it was Kamper’s next turn to serve, the Canadians once again got a look at 15-40. This time, a pair of misses from Mboko sent the game back to deuce. Another break point would come and go but on the fourth in the game, Kamper pulled a swinging forehand volley wide to make it a double break at 5-2. Dabrowski promptly served out the set to love.
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The Canadians kept rolling into the second set. In the opening game, Mboko tapped home a tight forehand volley to create another 15-40 opening and then fired a winner to give the Canucks an immediate break. Another hold from the teen stretched the Canadians run to seven games before finally the Danes held for 1-2.
Even though Kamper and Svendsen had stopped the run, they still found themselves down a break and were struggling to create much pressure on their opponent’s serve. The closest they would come to getting a break back was a love-30 lead on Dabrowski’s serve in the eighth game, but the Canadians pulled out some impressive shot making, including a curling forehand from the Ottawan that clipped the line, to hold without facing a break point.
They failed to convert a break point on return in the ninth game but it did not matter. When it came time to serve for the match, Mboko easily held to love to complete the comeback.
Brace Can’t Close in Opening Match
Cadence Brace was up first for the Canucks, making her Billie Jean King Cup debut, and was one point away from securing the opening match for Canada nine times, but her opponent Rebecca Munk Mortensen mounted a thrilling comeback to steal the win 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(4). The match lasted three hours and 38 minutes.
The Canadian will be left to rue her missed opportunities. She had 23 break points in the match, including eight that were also match points when Munk Mortensen served to stay in the match at 5-6 in the third set, and converted eight. In the end, she won seven more points than the Dane.
Both women were tight at the start of the match and it was not until the fifth game that the server managed a hold. That was by Brace, who then kept rolling on return, coaxing a couple of errors from Munk Mortensen to secure her third break in a row to go up 4-2.
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After the break-filled start, both women settled down in the late stages of the set. By the time Munk Mortensen managed to hold, she was down a break and despite upping her level, she could not reel the Canadian back in.
Munk Mortensen held to open the second before once again, the pair went on a run of four consecutive breaks. Brace was down 1-3 before breaking, getting her first hold of the set to end the run of breaks to make it 3-all, and then cracking the Dane’s serve again to go up 4-3. Unlike the first set, though, she could not maintain her advantage as she was immediately broken back to love.
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At 5-5, Munk Mortensen’s ground game deserted her and a slew of errors gifted Brace a break. After a lengthy medical timeout for Munk Mortensen, the Canadian had the match on her racquet at 6-5, 40-30, but the Dane was not going away quietly. A series of huge forehands from Munk Mortensen saved the match point and she was able to break to force a tiebreak.
A Brace forehand wide on her first service point gifted her opponent a quick minibreak that the Canadian never managed to regain. Munk Mortensen was looking like a different player after her medical timeout and kept up her big-hitting throughout the tiebreak. She never dropped a point on her own delivery and sent the match to a third set with a return winner.
Just like the previous two sets, Munk Mortensen secured an early break but this time, she managed to consolidate, holding to go up 3-1. However, she was still unable to maintain the advantage. In the fifth game, the Dane misfired on a couple of forehands to hand the break back to Brace.
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In an epic 12th game, Brace had eight more match points to close out the match, including three in a row when she went up love-40. But Munk Mortensen dug deep, saving all eight, many of them with forehand winners, as she escaped to force another tiebreak. Like the second-set breaker, the Dane took an early lead that she never let go. It took her three match points of her own, but another big backhand from Munk Mortensen eventually stole the first point for Denmark.
Canada will meet the hosts Mexico on Sunday in the final tie of the event. Whoever wins the tie, regardless of score, will win the group and clinch their spot in the 2026 Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers. The other teams will play in their regional Group I zones in 2026.
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Feature Photo: ITF
