Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko advanced to the second round of the Australian Open with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Australian wild card Emerson Jones at Melbourne Park on Monday.
The 17th-seeded Mboko, appearing as a seed in a Grand Slam main draw for the first time, broke serve in the seventh game of the opening set and held on to take it 6-4. The Canadian, ranked No. 17 on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, broke twice early in the second set to race to a 4-0 lead before breaking Jones again in the seventh game to seal the match in 1 hour, 12 minutes.
Some of the most notable numbers from Mboko’s win included:
0: Mboko did not face a break point on her serve and converted four of 10 break-point opportunities during the straight-sets victory.
1: The victory marked Mboko’s first career win at the Australian Open. The 19-year-old had previously recorded three Grand Slam main-draw wins, reaching the third round at Roland-Garros and the second round at Wimbledon in 2025.
2: Mboko is one of two Canadians seeded in this year’s women’s singles draw, along with No. 22 Leylah Fernandez, marking the first time Canada has had two seeded women at the Australian Open in the Open Era. Fernandez will play Indonesia’s Janice Tjen in the first round on Tuesday. Both players will be hoping to go one better than Eugenie Bouchard, whose run to the semifinals in 2014 here is the best result by a Canadian woman at the Australian Open.
7: Mboko has won seven straight matches against players ranked outside the top 100 and holds a 7-1 career record against opponents in that category.
10: She has won 10 of her past 11 matches in WTA Tour singles events. Mboko ended the 2025 season by winning the Hong Kong title and opened the new season by reaching the final in Adelaide. She also went 1-1 in United Cup play for Canada in the opening week of the season.
14: That’s the number of winners Mboko hit on Monday. She also committed 20 unforced errors. Jones, a former junior world No. 1 making her second Australian Open main-draw appearance, finished with 12 winners and 24 unforced errors.
Mboko will next face American Caty McNally, who defeated qualifier Himeno Sakatsume 6-3, 6-1 in the first round on Sunday. McNally won their only previous meeting, a three-set victory in the first round at Austin in 2024.
