Coming in off a final at the WTA 125 tournament in Parma, Italy, on Sunday, promising Canadian Victoria Mboko moved into the second round of Roland Garros qualifying with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over world no. 159-ranked Sinja Kraus of Austria on Tuesday.
Asked to grade her performance on an A to F scale, the 18-year-old from Toronto laughed and said, “I’ll give myself a B+. I feel like I had a pretty slow start. I’ve only had a day to adjust to everything here coming from Italy so quick and so fast. In the first two games I was really nervous, it’s my first ever Grand Slam appearance and Sinja is a very good player. It took me some time to adjust to the courts and the environment. That’s why I (graded) myself a little higher because I think I adjusted pretty well and got back my game and my composure. It wasn’t extraordinary but I was just good enough to get through the match.”
Mboko is already one of the biggest hitters in women’s tennis – and that showed in how she was able to basically wear down and out-hit Kraus, who is solid ball-striker herself.
At the start of 2025, Mboko won five ITF tournaments (going 27-1). Then, after getting a wild card, she reached the second round of the WTA 1000 event in Miami before losing 7-5, 1-6, 7-6(3) to world no. 10 Paula Badosa. At the Italian Open in Rome two weeks ago, she qualified and reached the second round before losing 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 to no. 3 Coco Gauff (see picture here).
Not turning 19 until August 26, Mboko is showing the pedigree for a promising future, including on clay courts. “When I was younger I always used to establish in my head that I’m not a clay-court player,” she said. “I’m not a fan of the sliding and everything. But I feel like after this season – the tournaments I’ve played the people I’ve played against – it’s given me confidence as to where I am with my clay-court game.”
Mboko is currently under the tutelage of 1998 Wimbledon finalist and former world no. 3, Nathalie Tauziat. The 57-year-old Frenchwoman has previously worked with Canadian players such as Aleksandra Wozniak, Eugenie Bouchard and Bianca Andreescu. “I really love Nathalie,” Mboko said enthusiastically. “We have a lot of fun together and she’s known me for a really long time. With Nathalie it’s very relaxed on court – she obviously has a lot of knowledge. (Laughing) The only thing is that she has so much knowledge that whenever I come at her…she’s like ‘here.’ She’s already there. She’s really helped me and I’m grateful she’s spending this time with me.”
As for the timely topic of speaking French, Mboko said about hers, “sometimes it’s flowing good but sometimes I stutter a lot. I’m talking to people in French here – so it’s okay. But my whole family speaks French (roots in Congo) except for me.”
In Thursday’s second round, Mboko, who rose 34 places in the rankings to no. 121 as a result of her runner-up finish to Egypt’s Mayar Sherif on Sunday, will face no. 161 Kathinka Von Deichmann, a 31-year-old from Liechtenstein.
On Tuesday, feeding Rebecca Marino a steady diet of sliced backhands, Von Deichmann was able to bamboozle the 34-year-old Canadian – winning 6-1, 6-0 in just 66 minutes.
“It’s definitely not how I wanted the day to go,” Marino said later with a touch of humour. “It’s fair to say I’m disappointed by that but I think my opponent played a really smart game. If you want to have a match-up that’s the most frustrating for me, it’s definitely the way she played with her slice and lack of pace.”
About her pre-match knowledge of Von Deichmann, Marino said, “I knew she had a one-handed backhand. And I knew she played a lot of slice shots, but I didn’t expect the overall game to be quite that way.”
“I felt like I had been practising really well the last few days and I just came out a little bit flat today. Everyone can have a bad day every once and a while and unfortunately it came on the wrong day for me.”
“I was trying to get my energy up and trying to hit through the ball – and felt like I was missing by centimetres on a lot of things. By the end of the game I was finding my grove a little bit.”
Tennis has its ups and downs and its quirks. The no. 108-ranked Marino was just five spots out from getting directly into the Roland-Garros main draw – and some of those keeping her out were players who are ranked lower but can use an (injury) protected ranking to get in directly – and into some of the good paycheques that are available even to Grand Slam tournament first-round losers.
Now Marino turns her thoughts to grass and will play British WTA 125 events in Birmingham (June 2-8) and Ilkley (June 9-15) before seeing what tournament she can get into the week before the Wimbledon qualifying begins.
While Marino was playing in her fourth Roland Garros (dating back to 2011), Kayla Cross of London, Ontario made her Grand Slam debut when she faced Patricia-Maria Tig on Court 10. The 30-year-old Romanian has been a professional for more than 15 years and was always going to be a test for Cross, who turned 20 last month.
The first set on Tuesday was competitive as the players exchanged breaks until Tig held to 3-1 before eventually prevailing 6-4. The second set was more one-sided as Tig, the mother of a five-year-old daughter, imposed her game on the way to 5-1 lead before ending the contest 6-4, 6-2 in an hour and 15 minutes.
It certainly didn’t help Cross that she was playing NCAA Championships tennis (on hardcourts) for her Louisiana State University team in Waco, Texas, as of late last Thursday.
Cross is at a career-high WTA ranking of no. 217 – while also excelling doubles where is ranked no. 159.
Well before Cross vs Tig, the day began on an anticlimactic note when Liam Draxl was soundly beaten 6-2, 6-2 by Filip Misolic of Austria in a 10 a.m. start, also on Court 10.
Draxl, 23, playing his first Grand Slam qualifying event, arrived in Paris with a shoulder concern and things were further aggravated when he got up Tuesday morning, feeling ill and low on energy.
“Liam was a bit short on preparation because he had a little problem with his shoulder the last few weeks,” said Tennis Canada’s Vice-President of High Performance Guillaume Marx. “and this morning he woke up not feeling well.”
“Liam’s strength is his grit and competitiveness and just wasn’t able to be himself today.”
Marx was asked if there any moments when he thought Draxl looked like he might make a match of it? “Not really,” he replied. “Misolic pulled ahead right away. Liam tried a bit at the beginning of the second set but didn’t have it in him to make it a match.”
It was a tough break for the former University of Kentucky athlete from Newmarket, Ontario. His ranking has risen from no. 302 at the end if 2023 to its current no. 148.
DO THEY REALLY ❤️ THE U.S.A.?
It’s an odd predilection that some Frenchwomen and Frenchmen think it’s cool and trendy to ‘Anglicize’ – or more specifically to ‘Americanize.’
The French have the perfect word to describe a food lover – and that is ‘gourmand.’
Do they really think it’s appropriate to accentuate English this way in a promotion for a festival – especially under the bold non-French heading ‘taste.’
