Imagine getting a text one day from “Maybe Serena” and it is the greatest player of all time asking if you want to play doubles together in a few weeks?
That is Victoria Mboko’s reality as that random text in May turned into a partnership this week on the grass courts of the Queen’s Club in London. The Canadian teen will in fact be playing alongside the multi-major champion, who is making her return to professional tennis this week.
Here’s what you need to know.
What to Watch: Mboko-Williams Partnership Highlights Busy Start to Grass Swing
Week one of the 2026 grass season has the potential to be one of the busiest of the entire year when it comes to Canadians in action, with eight Canucks competing in tour-level main draws this week, most of them in both singles and doubles.
Victoria Mboko finds herself more in the spotlight than ever this week, largely due to her doubles partner. The teen is teaming up with Serena Williams at the HSBC Championships at the Queen’s Club in London as the 44-year-old legend makes her return to tennis after almost four years of retirement.
The pair will have their hands full in round one, as they were drawn against third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe. An upset there could set up a round-two clash with Leylah Annie Fernandez and her partner Laura Siegemund, if they get past Alexandra Panova and Demi Schuurs.
Gabriela Dabrowski is pulling the quick turnaround from clay to grass. Having played her last match at Roland-Garros on Friday, she and Luisa Stefani are already refocused on grass, seeded second this week at the Queen’s Club. They open against Miyu Kato and Liudmila Samsonova and are in the same half of the draw as the other Canadians, whom they could meet in the semis.
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In singles, Mboko is seeded third and has a first-round bye. She will face either Karolina Pliskova or McCartney Kessler in her opening match. Roland-Garros semifinalist Marta Kostyuk, the fifth seed at Queen’s, is her projected quarter-final opponent.
Fernandez is seeded eighth and faces home favourite Katie Boulter in the first round. She would play either Qinwen Zheng or Jacqueline Cristian in round two, with top seed Elena Rybakina likely waiting in the quarter-finals.
If not for the Mboko-Williams team-up, Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov reuniting in doubles at the Libema Open in s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, might have been the biggest story of the week. The pair will be teaming up for the first time since the grass season last year.
In the first round, they will meet Petr Nouza and Neil Oberleitner, with second seeds Robert Cash and JJ Tracy potentially waiting in the quarter-finals. If the Canadian pair reach the semis, they could meet their countryman Gabriel Diallo and his big-name partner, former Top 10 singles player Hubert Hurkacz. Diallo and Hurkacz are already into the quarter-finals after upsetting third seeds Yuki Bhambri and Michael Venus 14-12 in the match tiebreak on Monday morning in round one.
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Diallo is the defending singles champion in s-Hertogenbosch, having won his maiden ATP Tour title here a year ago. He faces a tricky title defence, starting against two-time grass-court titlist Adrian Mannarino. A win would set up a second-round clash with No. 4 seed Arthur Rinderknech, with No. 6 Tallon Griekspoor his projected quarter-final opponent.
Auger-Aliassime is the top seed at the ATP 250 event. He has a first-round bye and will have a big-hitter in round two, either Hurkacz or Marton Fucsovics. No. 8 seed Zizou Bergs is his first potential seeded opponent in the quarter-finals.
Shapovalov’s singles campaign in s-Hertogenbosch was short-lived, as he was beaten in three sets on Monday in the first round by former Wimbledon runner-up Marin Cilic.
Bianca Andreescu, the 2024 runner-up at the Libema Open, is the only Canadian competing on the women’s side this year. She was beaten in singles on Monday morning by third seed Elise Mertens but is also entered in the doubles alongside France’s Lois Boisson.
Alexis Galarneau will be competing in his first tour-level grass event this week in Stuttgart. The Lavallois gritted through back-to-back three-set wins in qualifying over Yu Hsiou Hsu and Roman Safiullin to get into the main draw. He will face Jan-Lennard Struff in round one for the right to play third seed Alexander Bublik in round two.
In Case You Missed: Auger-Aliassime Up to No. 4 After Roland-Garros
While Félix Auger-Aliassime's French Open run came to, by his own account, a difficult end, there is a silver lining for the Montrealer. By reaching the quarter-finals in Paris, he became the first Canadian to reach the quarter-finals in singles at all four Grand Slam events.
And despite losing in the last eight to eventual runner-up Flavio Cobolli in four sets, Auger-Aliassime climbed up to a new career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world. He is now just one spot away from matching the highest singles ranking ever held by a Canadian (Milos Raonic got to No. 3 at the end of 2016).
Gabriela Dabrowski was the last Canadian standing in Paris, reaching the semifinals in women’s doubles and getting all the way to the final in mixed doubles, where she and Evan King were defeated in a match tiebreak by Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori.
Under the Radar: Victory for Arseneault and Gurenko
After all the close calls in Paris, the trophy that ended up in the hands of Canadians actually came all the way over in California, where Mikael Arnseault and Volodymyr Gurenko scored the doubles win at an M15 event in Lakewood.
The Canadian pair did not drop a set on their way to the final, including a quarter-final win over another all-Canadian team, Mikael’s twin brother Nicolas and Niels Peter van Noord. In the final, they edged out the second seeds Reece Falck and Matthew Shearer 6-3, 5-7, 10-8 to secure the title.
Photo : volodymyr_gurenko_
It is the first professional title of the 19-year-old Arseneault’s career and the second for Gurenko, who won his first in doubles earlier this year.
Arseneault will be back in action this week as one of five Canadians competing at an M25 event in Wichita.
On home soil, one of Canada’s largest Masters Tennis events is being held this week, the MT1000 Mont-Tremblant Cup.
You can follow the Canadians in action every week here.
Feature Photo : WTA/@vickymboko
