Canadian teen Mboko through to second round at Citi Open with win over Potapova
Mboko, a 19-year-old from Toronto, won 62.7 per cent of total service points compared to 50 per cent for Potapova.
The Canadian had 13 break point chances against Potapova and converted five of them, the last coming in the deciding game. Potapova scored two breaks on six chances.
Mboko, who entered Washington with a career-high ranking of 86, will next face No. 12 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan at the WTA 500 tournament.
Mboko, who has played both at the WTA Tour level and on the lower-tier ITF World Tennis Tour circuit this year, improved her record this season to 46-8.
She posted her fourth win of the season against a top-50 opponent as she prepares for her main-draw debut at the upcoming WTA 1000-level National Bank Open in Montreal.
Later Monday, Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., faced Australia's Maya Joint. In first-round doubles action, Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., was set to team with Clervie Ngounoue of the United States in a match against the American duo of Venus Williams and Hailey Baptiste.
The 31-year-old Bouchard, a former world No. 5 and a Wimbledon finalist in 2014, is playing in her second-last tournament after announcing last week that she will retire after the National Bank Open.
The 45-year-old Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, is starting a comeback after more than a year away from tennis.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2025.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
7 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Germany's Zverev, United States' Gauff named top seeds for National Bank Open
TORONTO - Germany's Alexander Zverev and American Coco Gauff have been announced as the top seeds of the men's and women's sides of the upcoming National Bank Open. Zverev, ranked No. 3 in the world, occupies the top spot with No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy, No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, No. 5 Jack Draper of the United States and 24-time Grand Slam champion and sixth-ranked Novak Djokovic of Serbia all having withdrawn from the tournament. All four players cited injury or need for recovery following the Wimbledon Grand Slam event which ended on July 13 with Sinner defeating Alcaraz for the title. Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., are the 24th and 25th seeds. Montrealer Gabriel Diallo is the 30th seed for the men's tournament in Toronto. Gauff, a two-time Grand Slam champion and No. 2 in the world, holds the top spot for the women's tournament in Montreal. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus withdrew last week due to fatigue. There are no Canadians in the top 32 for the women's event in Montreal. The top-32 seeds from both sides will have first-round byes in the tournament that runs from Saturday through Aug. 7. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2025.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Onus on athletes to let drug testers know where they are under "whereabouts" rules
A chunk of an Olympic and Paralympic athlete's life is spent telling drug testers where they will be every day and every night. Failure to provide that information can damage an athlete's eligibility to compete, even if they've never taken a banned substance. Penny Oleksiak won't be on Canada's swimming team at world championship starting Saturday in Singapore after running afoul of "whereabouts" requirements. From staying at a friend's house overnight in the off-season to training in remote mountains, athletes must be found for testing in order to avoid sanctions. The onus is on athletes to submit that information through the web-based Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) on a computer or on a mobile-phone app. Athletes must provide, on a quarterly basis, their addresses (home, hotel or otherwise) and every day must have an overnight accommodation entry. Also required is contact info, training and competition schedules and locations, time and location of school, work or medical appointments, and a 60-minute window each day that they're available for testing. If a grocery run or spontaneous decision to go to a movie conflicts with the 60-minute window an athlete offers as available for testing, ADAMS must be updated beforehand to provide an alternative hour. But athletes can also be tested at any time and any place with no advance notice. Whereabouts information must be sufficiently detailed so they can be found for testing. Swimming Canada said Oleksiak made "an administrative mistake" and failed to keep her whereabouts information up to date. Whereabouts and ADAMS are constants in an elite athlete's life. "It is part of our job," said Canadian race walker and Olympic medallist Evan Dunfee. "It is something that we sign up for." He recalled a 2017 vacation in Iceland where he was travelling in a recreational vehicle. "We didn't know where we were going to be stopping each night," Dunfee recalled. "We were just going to drive until we found somewhere nice and set up shop." That required a consultation with the Canadian Centre For Ethics in Sport. "I actually had to chat with CCES beforehand and say, 'hey, how do I follow the rules in this situation?' They said 'to the best of your ability, update it as best you can.' I think I ended up putting in my latitude and longitude," Dunfee said. The World Anti-Doping Code (WADA) defines a whereabouts failure as any combination of three missed tests or filing failures in a 12-month period, which the International Testing Agency stated Oleksiak did between October 2024 and June 2025. Oleksiak withdrew from the world championship and accepted a voluntary provisional suspension under World Aquatics anti-doping rules. The 25-year-old from Toronto stated in a since-deleted social media post her violation 'does not involve any banned substance' and added, 'I am and always have been a clean athlete." Under World Aquatics rules, if an athlete in the testing pool submits 'late, inaccurate or incomplete whereabouts that lead to (them) being unavailable for testing, (they) may receive a Filing Failure.' Canadian athletes receive training on how to navigate ADAMS and what information is required, said CCES Sport Integrity executive director Kevin Bean. "What we do with each registered testing pool athlete is they're required to do an online e-learning course, and they have a specific module that outlines how they work through the process to submit the whereabouts information, what ADAMS is, where it's located, the type of information that you need to submit, what the deadlines are," Bean said. "They're required to take that course upon entry and then it's available to them every year thereafter if they remain in the registered testing pool, but it is no longer mandatory for them to take it in the years after." The deadline for submitting whereabouts info for each quarter is the last day of the month preceding that quarter. Athletes receive email reminders a month before and 15 days out from that deadline, Bean said. There is flexibility to update ADAMS information after that quarterly deadline, Dunfee said. "Doing that three months in advance doesn't mean you can't change it," he said. "We have a specific email address that we can send to, and a text message line that we send last-minute emergency changes to our whereabouts, too, if for whatever reason we can't access the app, if there's an issue with it." Fluid schedules in different time zones can cause whereabouts mistakes, Dunfee said. "I had a case one time in Australia, where because of just getting my days confused, I missed the filing deadline for that quarter," he recalled. "It sent a lot of things into chaos and it was some very panicked emails an hour after I was supposed to have done this, sorting it out. I managed to correct it and get it OK." Dunfee says he spends about an hour a month inputting his information in ADAMS because knows his schedule fairly well in advance. He acknowledged keeping whereabouts information current is hectic for his more nomadic teammates. "I completely understand for some athletes, it's way more onerous than it is for me," he said. "We have athletes who are hoping to get into these races in Europe. "They might be on a start list for a race in Norway and a race in Belgium on the same weekend, and they're just waiting to find out which one they get into. Certainly there are cases that are much more complicated than mine." This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2025. Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Venus Williams makes winning return to tennis aged 45
Venus Williams enjoyed a winning return to competitive tennis after 16 months away as she reached the quarterfinals of the women's doubles at the DC Open alongside Hailey Baptiste. The all-American pair defeated compatriot Clervie Ngounoue and the retiring Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-1 in the round of 16 for Williams' first victory on the WTA Tour since August 2023, when she defeated Veronika Kudermetova in the opening round of the Cincinnati Open. Williams, 45, gave her signature twirl after the match as she took in the adulation of the capacity crowd. 'It's just nice to be able to play,' Williams said after the match, per the Associated Press. 'Where I am at this year is so much different where I was at last year. It's night and day, being able to be here and prepare for the tournament as opposed to preparing for surgery a year ago.' Williams told NBC earlier this month that she had undergone surgery to remove fibroids from her uterus, a condition she said had affected her career and life for years. 'At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if your health is not there,' she added. 'So, it definitely put it in perspective for me and maybe made it easier to make the decision to maybe come back out here and maybe play even freer.' It was the first time Williams had stepped onto the court at all for an official match since an opening-round defeat to Diana Shnaider at the Miami Open in March 2024. Her last doubles match was almost three years ago. Williams, who is currently without a ranking in singles or doubles, has won seven grand slam singles titles and 14 in doubles alongside youngster sister Serena, as well as two mixed doubles titles in 1998. After the win, Williams joked that her and Baptiste should have partnered up much sooner. 'I think, from the first point, I could see that we were going to be a good team,' she said. 'We just should have started playing earlier, years ago, right? I think Serena was just in the way.' Williams, who accepted wild cards to compete in the singles and doubles, will make her return in the singles competition when she faces American Peyton Stearns in the opening round on Tuesday.
