Victoria Mboko’s journey at the Toray Pan Pacific Open ended on Friday with a defeat against Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals. Despite winning 83.3% of her first-serve points during the one-hour, 31-minute match, the Canadian teenager lost 6-3, 7-6(4), only conceding one of three break points.
Rybakina, seeded second in the tournament, secured her spot in the semifinals with five aces at the WTA 500 hard court event. The quarterfinal match was a rematch following Mboko’s victory over Rybakina in the National Bank Open semifinal in Montreal, where the 19-year-old from Toronto emerged as the tournament winner as a wild-card entrant.
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, a two-time ATP 500 event champion from Montreal, retired after losing the first set 6-3 to Jaume Munar of Spain. Shapovalov, hailing from Richmond Hill, Ont., retired while trailing 3-6, 6-3, 4-1 against Joao Fonseca of Brazil.
Auger-Aliassime, who recently claimed his third trophy in Brussels, faced a setback in his quest to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin. Ranked 12th globally and ninth in the Race to Turin standings, he lagged 340 points behind the eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti, with only the top eight players earning spots in the year-end championship.
Auger-Aliassime, seeded fifth in Basel, struggled with a lower back issue during his quarterfinal match, where he lost the first set. Despite fending off break points, he couldn’t recover. Shapovalov, ranked 23rd in the world, retired against Fonseca after a competitive match.
Munar and Fonseca are set to face off in the semifinals. Additionally, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Sofia Kenin were defeated by Luisa Stefani from Brazil and Timea Babos from Hungary in the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Tokyo Open.
