WTA Victoria Mboko is voted rookie of the year

Victoria Mboko was voted rookie of the year on the WTA circuit on Monday, becoming the fourth Canadian to receive this distinction, after Carling Bassett (1983), Eugenie Bouchard (2013) and Bianca Andreescu (2019).

Mboko, an Ontarian aged only 19, notably went from outside the top 300 At top 20 world during a remarkable season during which she notably beat four Grand Slam singles tournament champions and won the National Bank of Montreal Open.

She also won a WTA title in Hong Kong in November, had four consecutive ITF Tour titles earlier this year and reached the third round of the French Open.

Last week, she was named one of the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) five future stars and was recently received by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Among the other players recognized Monday was Aryna Sabalenka, who won her second consecutive WTA Tour player of the year title, receiving nearly 80 percent of the votes from a panel of journalists after triumphing at the U.S. Open, reaching the finals of two other Grand Slam tournaments and finishing the season at No. 1 in the world rankings.

Sabalenka joined the American Serena Williams and the Polish Iga Świątek among the players who have won this title two years in a row over the last 25 years.

Sabalenka, a 27-year-old Belarusian, dominated women’s tennis in 2025 in wins (63-12), titles (4) and finals played (9), and she set a tour record by winning 15 million in purses. She spent the entire year at number one in the WTA rankings.

Sabalenka was a finalist against American Madison Keys at the Australian Open in January and against American Coco Gauff at the French Open in June. Additionally, she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in July before losing to American Amanda Anisimova, and she won her fourth Grand Slam singles title by successfully defending her title at Flushing Meadows in September, defeating Anisimova in the final.

For her part, Anisimova was voted the most improved player after reaching her first two Grand Slam finals at the All England Club, where she was runner-up to Świątek, and in New York. She reached three more finals, including winning the WTA 1000 series titles in Doha and Beijing.

The 24-year-old American player finished 2024 ranked 36^e place in the world rankings and, after entering the top 10she rose to fourth place at the end of that season. Anisimova was also nominated for player of the year.

This season capped a meteoric rise for Anisimova, who had taken a break in 2023, saying she had “struggled with mental health issues” for almost a year.

Other winners on Monday included Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, who was voted the most successful comeback player of the year, as well as Czech Kateřina Siniaková and American Taylor Townsend, who were voted doubles team of the year.

Bencic took more than a year away from the tour to give birth to her first child, then won two titles in 2025 and reached the semifinals at Wimbledon for the first time. It was his first appearance in the final four of a major tournament since 2019.

For their part, Siniaková and Townsend won the Australian Open and were runners-up at the US Open.

With Howard Fendrich, Associated Press