Victoria Mboko’s journey at the Toray Pan Pacific Open ended on Friday with a defeat to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals with a score of 6-3, 7-6(4). During the one-hour, 31-minute match, the Canadian teenager impressively won 83.3% of her first-serve points and only conceded one of three break points in her loss.
Rybakina, seeded second in the tournament, secured her spot in the semifinals of the WTA 500 hard court competition by delivering five aces. This quarterfinal match was a rematch between the two players after Mboko emerged victorious against Rybakina in the semifinals of the National Bank Open in Montreal, where the 19-year-old from Toronto eventually clinched the title as a wild-card entry.
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, hailing from Montreal and a previous two-time winner of the ATP 500 event, retired after losing the first set 6-3 to Jaume Munar from Spain. Shapovalov, representing Richmond Hill, Ontario, retired while trailing 3-6, 6-3, 4-1 against Brazil’s Joao Fonseca.
Auger-Aliassime, who recently secured his third trophy of the year in Brussels, faced a setback in his quest to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin due to this loss. Ranked 12th in the world and ninth in the Race to Turin standings, he currently trails 340 points behind the eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti, with only the top eight players qualifying for the year-end championship.
During the quarterfinal match, Auger-Aliassime appeared to experience discomfort in his lower back, affecting his performance on the court. Despite fending off three break points in the sixth game, he couldn’t recover from losing his serve in the fourth game. In the previous rounds, he defeated Gabriel Diallo of Canada and Marin Cilic of Croatia.
On the other hand, Shapovalov, ranked 23rd in the world, retired against Fonseca after a solid first set where he overcame an early break. Fonseca, ranked 46th globally, dominated the decisive moments of the match, securing a break to go up 4-1 in the third set before Shapovalov retired.
Munar and Fonseca are set to face off in the semifinals of the tournament. In the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Tokyo Open, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Sofia Kenin were defeated by Luisa Stefani from Brazil and Timea Babos from Hungary.