👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.

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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.