Mats Wilander Believes Victoria Mboko is Good Enough to Follow in the Footsteps of Emma Raducanu at the US Open

Victoria Mboko will face Barbora Krejcikova in the first round of the 2025 US Open.

Mats Wilander Believes Victoria Mboko is Good Enough to Follow in the Footsteps of Emma Raducanu at the US Open

Victoria Mboko, Emma Raducanu, and Mats Wilander (via X/The Tennis Letter/Eurosport)

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Former World No.1 Mats Wilander believes Victoria Mboko can win the 2025 US Open by following in the footsteps of Emma Raducanu. Raducanu stunned the tennis world at the event in 2021, when she entered the tournament as a qualifier and went on to win the singles title without dropping a set.

Mboko, who started the year ranked World No.333, is currently ranked No.24 in the WTA rankings. The 18-year-old Canadian star entered the Canadian Open as a wildcard and defeated four Grand Slam champions to win the title. She first defeated former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in straight sets.

She then went on to beat two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff in the fourth round. In the semi-finals, she faced former Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina and saved a match point before forcing the match to a deciding set. Despite sustaining a wrist injury, she overcame the former World No.3 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) to reach her first tour-level final.

At the final, she faced former US Open champion Naomi Osaka and pulled off a sensational comeback victory 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 to win her maiden title in front of the home crowd. She became the first Canadian since Bianca Andreescu in 2019 to win the WTA 1000 tournament. Following her run in Montreal, she’s now seeded at the US Open women’s singles.

In a conversation on TNT Sports, Wilander revealed that Mboko can follow the footsteps of Raducanu at the US Open by winning the Grand Slam. He added that Raducanu winning it in 2021 will give the 18-year-old the belief she can also do the same:

Is she good enough to win it already? Yeah, maybe, she won the Canadian Open. Why couldn’t she win the US Open? We’ve seen it done with Emma Raducanu. We saw it done with Bianca Andreescu. They were really young, both of them, and so is Mboko. These young players, they’re really being helped by some of the younger champions – like Carlos Alcaraz or Emma Raducanu – because they suddenly believe that they can win at 18 years old, and then Mboko obviously is one of them.

Mboko has only played in one Grand Slam tournament in her career and that came at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships. She won her first two matches at the tournament before losing to Hailey Baptiste in the third round. She will be hoping to pull a surprise at the US Open, which kicks off on August 24.

Mats Wilander shares a secret that will set Victoria Mboko apart from the rest on tour

Victoria Mboko’s only experience playing in a WTA final came at the Parma Open, a lower-tier WTA 125 tournament, where she finished as a runner-up in May. But that didn’t matter at the Canadian Open as she displayed an extraordinary mental toughness to win the title. She withdrew from the Cincinnati Open after the win to focus on the US Open.

VIctoria Mboko Canadian Open Montreal 2025
Victoria Mboko (image via Omnium Banque Nationale)

During the aforementioned conversation, Mats Wilander added that the only way Mboko can set herself apart from other players of her generation is by showing a different mentality and movement on the court:

You’re going to have good days and bad days when it comes to hitting forehands and backhands, but your mind and movement will never be bad if you’re good at it. And I think that’s what she has. She’s an unbelievable athlete and she’s an unbelievable fighter, and I think that’s why she’s going to stay at the top.

Mboko will take on 2024 Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova in the first round of the US Open. Krejcikova has struggled with a back injury, but at the Cincinnati Open, she did well to reach the fourth round before losing to eventual runners-up Jasmine Paolini in straight sets.

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