The jam-packed Centre Court caused a lot of trouble for Elena Rybakina in her SF match against the local favorite, Victoria Mboko. The Canadian crowd was seen cheering for Rybakina’s mistakes. Reacting to that moment, the Kazakh star later on admitted, “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 the very beginning.” Even when the match finished, chants of “Vicky! Vicky!” and “Allez Vicky!” echoed around the stadium.

Naomi Osaka, too, was within earshot. So she was well aware of what awaited her in the final. “I mean, she’s Canadian. I heard the applause from inside there. So, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be super lively,” she said in her post-match interview after she beat Clara Tauson in her own semi-final. And that’s exactly how the atmosphere turned out to be. In fact, the tremors of Victoria Mboko’s victory in Montreal travelled all the way to Toronto. If you have any doubts, just ask Ben Shelton.

After all, with the 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Osaka, Victoria Mboko became the second youngest woman to beat four Grand Slam champions (Sofia Kenin, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, and Naomi Osaka) in a single event. Naturally, the news of her victory sent Toronto into a frenzy of national pride. The sudden spike in decibel levels caught Shelton off guard as he stood there, confused, wondering what was going on. Ultimately, the responsibility of satisfying his query fell to the chair umpire, who himself took a shot in the dark. “I guess the Canadian player has won in Montreal,” he explained to the American.

Even during the women’s final match, there were moments when we saw the umpire repeatedly asking the rowdy fans to “please be quiet during the points.” There were 14 service breaks in 25 games, and Victoria Mboko broke Osaka 8 out of 9 times. What did the youngster say after this dream-come-true moment?

Victoria Mboko showcases her admiration for Naomi Osaka after the win

Although Victoria Mboko became the second-lowest-ranked player to win a Tier 1/WTA 1000 title since the format’s introduction in 1990, this win against Naomi Osaka has now ensured a jump from 85th to 24th place in the singles ranking. She has now joined the ranks of Faye Urban (1969) and Bianca Andreescu (2019) as the only Canadians to win the home event in the Open Era. Who would say that this teenager had started the season outside the top 300?

After beating Naomi Osaka in the final, she expressed her love and admiration for the former world number one by saying, “I wanna thank Naomi for an incredible match. I’ve always looked up to her when I was really little. It’s great to play with such an amazing player like you.” Before the final, when Osaka was informed that Mboko had idolized her while growing up, she said she was really honored to play against someone who had looked up to her as a player while growing up.

Now, after facing defeat to Victoria Mboko, Naomi Osaka didn’t want to take the spotlight off the youngster. “I don’t really wanna take up too much time. I’ll just say thank you to everyone. Thank you to my team, the ball kids, organizers, & volunteers. I hope you guys had a good night,” she stated in her post-match interview.

Victoria Mboko is now the third wild card to win a WTA 1000 title event, following the footsteps of Maria Sharapova at Cincinnati in 2011 and Bianca Andreescu at Indian Wells in 2019. Is this teenager the next big thing in women’s tennis?