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Let’s tennis!

Three Points

🎾 The brightest spotlight: Victoria Mboko played the tournament of her young career and capped it with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Naomi Osaka in the final on Thursday night, making it her fourth win over major winners in the same tournament.

  • What she said: “I think my biggest takeaway is the sky’s the limit,” Mboko told the Guardian after the win. “I never would have thought I would win a WTA 1000 so soon, that this would be my first WTA title, too.”
  • Pardon the interruption: When Mboko won, the crowd at the men’s final in Toronto erupted in cheers, interrupting play. “I guess the Canadian player won in Montreal,” chair umpire Fergus Murphy explained to a very confused Ben Shelton and Karen Khachanov.
  • By the numbers: Mboko has jumped up more than 60 spots in the rankings to number 24 in the world, making her the top Canadian in the world, primed for seeding at the U.S. Open, and one spot ahead of Naomi Osaka.
  • Next: Mboko, who received a performance bye in Cincinnati, faces 14th seed Diana Shnaider in the second round.

🎾 A first: Ben Shelton, the 22-year-old American, outlasted Karen Khachanov in three sets 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 to win the National Bank Open in Toronto, claiming his first 1000-level title.

  • What they said: “I feel like it was a perfect storm for me this week,” Shelton said after the match. “A lot of tight matches, long matches, played some of the best tennis that I’ve played this year.”
  • By the numbers: Shelton moves up just one spot in the rankings to number six, inching that much closer to the top five.

🎾 Poor form: Less than a day after Naomi Osaka expressed how grateful she was to be in a final again — especially at the 1000-level — she displayed some of the poorest behavior of recent memory as her attempt to win the title in Montreal slipped away. When it became clear she wouldn’t be the winner, Osaka began tanking the match, intentionally throwing away point after point until it was over.

  • And then: Then, after making a stadium of people wait for her to gather herself off the court, she returned for the trophy presentation and had to be coaxed by officials to go up and accept her trophy and give a speech, which was salty and an extension of her poor sportsmanship during the match. And, if that wasn’t enough, she couldn’t even be bothered to congratulate Mboko, a lifelong fan of Osaka. It was full-on immature brattiness and an embarrassment to her, her new coach, her sponsors, and her career.

And, that’s game.

What They Said

It’s little things, like footwork errors, one more step here, or, ‘Ok, you didn’t have to go for that shot that hard!’ I had break point and I just hit the hell out of the ball. I was like, ‘Why did I just do that? Calm down!’ But I just get so excited. I know how I can play and before I know it, I’ve hit some insane shot that’s just maybe too many RPMs. It’s like the Happy Gilmore moment of just ‘Tap it in’ a little bit!

-Venus Williams after her first-round 6-4, 6-4 loss in Cincinnati to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.

On The Radar

Matches we’re monitoring today:

Cincinnati - WTA 1000 (Hard)

  • Sonay Kartal vs. Caroline Garcia (1st round)
  • Alycia Parks vs. Barbora Krejcikova (1st round)
  • Danielle Collins vs. Taylor Townsend (1st round)
  • Caty McNally vs. Maddison Inglis (1st round)
  • Ann Li vs. Viktoriya Tomova (1st round)
  • Anastasija Sevastova vs. Emina Bektas (1st round)
  • Anna Bondar vs. Ajla Tomljanovic (1st round)
  • Caroline Dolehide vs. Rebecca Sramkova (1st round)
  • Varvara Gracheva vs. Katie Volynets (1st round)

Cincinnati - ATP 1000 (Hard)

  • Borna Coric vs. Emilio Nava (1st round)
  • Jenson Brooksby vs. Alexandre Muller (1st round)
  • Aleksandar Vukic vs. Nishesh Basavareddy (1st round)
  • Camilo Ugo Carabelli vs. Kei Nishikori (1st round)
  • Learner Tien vs. Leandro Riedl (1st round)
  • Tristan Boyer vs. Brandon Holt (1st round)
  • Marco Giron vs. Alexander Blockx (1st round)
  • Mattia Bellucci vs. Damir Dzumhur (1st round)
  • Miomir Kecmanovic vs. Ethan Quinn (1st round)
  • Hamad Medjedovic vs. Aleksandar Kovacevic (1st round)
  • Martin Landaluce vs. Patrick Kypson (1st round)

📺 Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.

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