Australian Open Victoria Mboko reaches third round

(Melbourne) Victoria Mboko erased a two-break deficit by winning six consecutive games in the second set on Wednesday to defeat American Caty McNally 6-4, 6-3 and reach the third round of the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Mboko (16^e), who had eliminated local favorite Emerson Jones (153^e) in the first round, thus equaled his best result in a Grand Slam. She also reached the third round at the French Open last summer.

She will now face the Danish Clara Tauson (14^e), who dismissed Uzbek Polina Kudermetova (150^e) with a victory of 6-3, 3-6 and 7-5. They never clashed.

A victory could give her a meeting with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the world’s number one racket, in the round of 16.

Having given up no break points in his first match, Mboko faced much more adversity against the 85^e world player. She erased four of McNally’s seven break chances, still losing her first two games of the second set with balls in hand.

Mboko then won the next six games to eliminate his opponent. McNally won the first duel between the two women in the WTA.

Finalist last week at the Adelaide tournament, Mboko won 74% of rallies when his opponent used his second service ball.

Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and her Brazilian partner Luisa Stefani began their doubles career brilliantly with a 6-4, 7-6 (3) victory against Americans Jessica Pegula and McCartney Kessler.

In 16^are In the final, the winners will face Colombian Emiliana Arango and Frenchwoman Elsa Jacquemot, who eliminated American Venus Williams and her Russian teammate Ekaterina Alexandrova in the first round.

Dabrowski and Stefani took the lead with a break that made it 5-4 in the first set. The two clans exchanged two breaks in the second set, Dabrowski and Stefani notably letting two match points slip away with balls in hand, at 5-4.

However, they won the first four points of the tiebreaker before ending the match in one hour 46 minutes.

Doubles specialist, Dabrowski (10^e) reached the semifinals in women’s doubles in this first major tournament of the season for the last two years. She has two Grand Slam titles, obtained in 2023 and 2025 at the United States Open with New Zealander Erin Routliffe.

After losing the day before in singles, Leylah Annie Fernandez suffered the same fate in doubles. With her Hungarian partner Timea Babos, she lost 6-4, 4-6 and 6-3 to the American Nicole Melichar-Martinez and the Spaniard Cristina Bucsa.

Trailing 6-4 and 4-2, Fernandez and Babos won four consecutive games in the second set to force a deciding set. Unable to take advantage of two break points, the pair nevertheless lost their serve twice during this one against the ninth seeds in women’s doubles.

Fernandez was shown the exit door by Indonesian Janice Tjen in singles, defeated 6-2, 7-6 (1).

Fernandez will also compete in mixed doubles, as she teams up with Nick Kyrgios. Dabrowski will participate with Briton Luke Johnson.

In men’s singles, Canadian Denis Shapovalov (23^e) will cross swords with Croatian Marin Cilic (70^e), Thursday, in the second round.