Victoria Mboko’s journey at the Toray Pan Pacific Open concluded on Friday, as she lost to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina with a score of 6-3, 7-6(4) in the quarterfinals.
The young Canadian player achieved an impressive 83.3 percent success rate on her first serves during the match, which lasted one hour and 31 minutes, and she only gave up one break point out of three during her defeat.
Rybakina, seeded second in the tournament, recorded five aces on her way to securing a spot in the semifinals of the WTA 500 hard court event.
This quarterfinal clash was a rematch, following Mboko’s victory over Rybakina in the semifinals of the National Bank Open held in Montreal.
The 19-year-old from Toronto triumphed in that tournament as a wild-card entry.
Rybakina also eliminated fellow Canadian Leylah Fernandez from the Pan Pacific Open, defeating her 6-4, 6-3 in a second-round encounter on Thursday.
Withdrawals of Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov
Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov both withdrew from their quarterfinal matches on Friday at the Swiss Indoors tennis tournament.
Montreal’s Auger-Aliassime, a two-time champion of the ATP 500 event, retired after losing the first set 6-3 to Spain’s Jaume Munar.
Later, Richmond Hill’s Shapovalov also retired while trailing 3-6, 6-3, 4-1 against Brazil’s Joao Fonseca.
Auger-Aliassime, who captured his third title of the year last week in Brussels, saw his chances of qualifying for the ATP Finals in Turin hindered by this defeat.
Entering the tournament ranked 12th globally and ninth in the Race to Turin standings, he is now 340 points behind eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti. The top eight players qualify for the year-end championship.
Seeded fifth in Basel, Auger-Aliassime appeared to have a lower back issue during the first set, taking time to stretch throughout the quarterfinal.
After dropping his serve in the fourth game, he struggled to recover, although he did fend off three break points in the sixth game.
He had previously defeated fellow Canadian Gabriel Diallo (ranked No. 41) and Croatia’s Marin Cilic (ranked No. 89) in the earlier rounds.
World No. 23 Shapovalov, fresh from a semifinal appearance last week in Stockholm, started strong against Fonseca, overcoming an initial break to lead 1-0.
However, the Brazilian teenager, who is ranked 46th, mounted a comeback in the second set. He secured his fifth break of the match to lead 4-1 in the third set before Shapovalov retired.
Munar and Fonseca are set to clash in the semifinals.
In other news, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her American partner Sofia Kenin were defeated by Brazil’s Luisa Stefani and Hungary’s Timea Babos in the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Tokyo Open.
