Victoria Mboko’s rapid rise has the Canadian teenager poised for Grand Slam success, former US Open champion Andy Roddick said after she beat fellow teenager Mirra Andreeva 7-6(4) 4-6 6-0 to reach the Miami Open quarterfinals.
Mboko picked up her first WTA Tour-level win in Miami last year and has enjoyed a string of deep runs at tournaments in 2026 highlighted by a fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open in January.
“Mboko is going to win a slam in the next two years,” Roddick said on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast. “She’s making the quarters or better in every single event. She gets through tough three-set matches all the time.”
Mboko’s losses at the Australian Open and in the Indian Wells quarterfinals came against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka, but Roddick said the defeats did little to dent his assessment of her potential.
“She plays well every week. Losing to Sabalenka, that doesn’t bother me at all. She’s physically strong and can withstand the stress test of big tennis,” he said. “I’m more and more impressed with her.”
Seeded 10th in Miami, Mboko turned in another assured display against doubles partner and emerging rival Andreeva on the sun-drenched hard courts, overcoming a second set lapse to pull away in dominant fashion.
I felt good in my first-round match here, and now I feel way better. I’m recovering that confidence. The level was there, I was just trying to find it. But now, [I am in] the round of 16, so hopefully I can keep it up
— Francisco Cerundolo
The Canadian Open champion broke the hard-serving Russian — who received treatment on her back during the match — three times in the decider and sealed victory with a blistering inside-out forehand on match point for her fifth top-10 win of the season.
Mboko will face Karolina Muchova for a place in the semifinals after the in-form Czech crushed Alexandra Eala 6-0 6-2 earlier on Monday.
Meawhile, Francisco Cerundolo’s love affair with the Miami Open shows no signs of cooling after the Argentine world No 19 stunned Russian Daniil Medvedev 6-0 4-6 7-5 to reach the fourth round.
The 27-year-old secured his first top-10 victory of the season against the former world No 1, who arrived in Florida in peak form after thwarting Carlos Alcaraz’s 16-0 start to the season, and finishing as runner-up at Indian Wells.
“I felt good in my first-round match here, and now I feel way better,” said Cerundolo. “I’m recovering that confidence. The level was there, I was just trying to find it. But now, [I am in] the round of 16, so hopefully I can keep it up.”
The match began with Cerundolo racing through the opening set, but Medvedev rallied from 1-3 down in the second set to force a decider.
The pair traded high-quality rallies amid the Florida heat, with Cerundolo’s forehand aggression disrupting Medvedev, while he produced an instinctive winner to end the two-hour, 17-minute encounter.
“I didn’t know what to expect. It was a great match, super tough,” Cerundolo said. “It was my first match against Daniil. He’s probably one of the only guys on tour who I have never played. He has had a great year so far, so I didn’t expect to be up 6-0 in the first set and a break up in the second.”
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Reuters
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