Naomi Osaka reaches Montreal final in her strongest run since comeback

By The Associate Press | Additional reporting and editing by The Haitian Times

MONTREAL (AP) — The Japanese and Haitian tennis star Naomi Osaka had her strongest tournament run since her return to the WTA Tour ended Thursday night with a loss to 18-year-old Victoria Mboko in the National Bank Open final.

Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1, won the first set but fell 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 to the Canadian wild card, who claimed her first WTA Tour title. Mboko, who began the year ranked outside the top 300, will rise to No. 25 in the world.

The Montreal crowd erupted as Mboko dropped to her knees after Osaka’s final shot found the net. She then hugged her family and coaches before addressing the fans in English and French.

“When I had that winning moment and seeing so many people standing up and cheering for me, it was kind of a surreal experience,” Mboko said. “I would have never thought something like this would have came so suddenly. It just proves that your dreams are closer than they seem.”

Mboko overcame a swollen right wrist that required medical scans earlier in the day. “It feels unbelievable right now,” she said. “There’s some moments where it was aggravating me a lot, but I feel like it was the final. I just kept saying to myself, ‘You have one more to go.’”

Osaka had been seeking her first title since the 2021 Australian Open. Her run in Montreal included wins over No. 10 seed Elina Svitolina, No. 16 seed Clara Tauson and two other former major champions. It was her best performance at a WTA 1000 event since reaching the Miami final in 2022, before a 15-month break from tennis during which she gave birth to her daughter, Shai, in July 2023.

Mboko’s victory made her the third wild card to win a WTA 1000 title, joining Maria Sharapova in Cincinnati (2011) and Bianca Andreescu in Indian Wells (2019).

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