Victoria Mboko stepped up when her country needed it on Saturday at the Billie Jean King Cup Play-Offs in Monterrey, Mexico, defeating Denmark’s Johanne Christine Svendsen in straight sets to level their tie at 1-1.
The Danes led 1-0 after Rebecca Munk Mortensen pulled off a stunning comeback against Canada’s Cadence Brace, who was making her Billie Kean King Cup debut, in the opening match. But after a slow start in the second match, the world No. 18 Mboko proved too strong for Svendsen, scoring a 7-5, 6-3, win to split the singles.
Doubles will decide the tie.
Mboko took some time to find her game but once she did, 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.
Brace Can’t Close
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.
Team Canada has to win both remaining matches on Saturday to win the tie.
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.
Mboko is expected to be back out in the doubles, looking to finish the job alongside Gabriela Dabrowski against the Danish pair of Laura Brunkel and Emma Kamper.
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Feature Photo: ITF
