Victoria Mboko’s journey at the Toray Pan Pacific Open concluded on Friday with a 6-3, 7-6(4) defeat against Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals. Despite winning 83.3% of her first-serve points during the one-hour, 31-minute match, the Canadian teenager only allowed one break point. Rybakina, seeded second in the tournament, hit five aces to secure a spot in the semifinals of the WTA 500 hard court event.
This match marked a rematch between the two players, following Mboko’s victory over Rybakina in the semifinals of the National Bank Open in Montreal, where the 19-year-old from Toronto went on to win the title as a wild-card entrant. Rybakina also ousted Canada’s Leylah Fernandez from the Pan Pacific Open, defeating her 6-4, 6-3 in a second-round encounter on Thursday.
In a separate development, Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov withdrew from their quarterfinal matches at the Swiss Indoors tennis tournament on Friday. Auger-Aliassime, a two-time winner of the ATP 500 event, retired after losing the first set 6-3 to Jaume Munar of Spain. Shapovalov, on the other hand, retired while trailing 3-6, 6-3, 4-1 against Joao Fonseca of Brazil.
Auger-Aliassime, winner of the Brussels trophy last week, faced a setback in his bid to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin. Ranked 12th in the world and ninth in the Race to Turin standings, he was 340 points behind eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti, with only the top eight players securing spots in the year-end championship. Shapovalov, ranked 23rd in the world, retired due to injury during his match against Fonseca.
Munar and Fonseca will now clash in the semifinals of the Swiss Indoors tournament. Additionally, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Sofia Kenin were defeated by Luisa Stefani of Brazil and Timea Babos of Hungary in the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Tokyo Open.
