Canada’s Victoria Mboko progressed to the quarterfinals of the Hong Kong Open after defeating Alexandra Eala of the Philippines with a score of 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday. Mboko, seeded third, served eight aces and managed to break Eala’s serve five times, winning 67 percent of her first-serve points. The 19-year-old player from Toronto will now face Russia’s sixth-seeded Anna Kalinskaya in the upcoming match.
Joining Mboko in the final eight is her fellow Canadian Leylah Fernandez. Fernandez, the tournament’s second seed, secured her spot in the quarterfinals on Wednesday with a straight-sets victory of 6-4, 6-1 against Germany’s Eva Lys. She is set to play against Romania’s seventh-seeded Sorana Cirstea in the next round.
In another match, Félix Auger-Aliassime from Montreal advanced to the Paris Masters quarterfinals after defeating Germany’s Daniel Altmaier with a score of 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. The ninth-seeded player from Montreal bounced back after losing the first set, winning 87 percent of his first-serve points and converting three out of 10 break opportunities. Auger-Aliassime recorded seven aces and three double faults during the two-hour 11-minute match.
Auger-Aliassime expressed his satisfaction with his performance, stating, “Three sets all week. It’s been a struggle all week.” Despite a slow start in the first set, he remained composed and focused on finding solutions to secure the win. Auger-Aliassime mentioned that he improved his serving as the match progressed and successfully broke Altmaier’s serve three times to secure the victory.
Currently ranked ninth in the ATP Race to Turin standings, Auger-Aliassime is still in contention for a spot in the season-ending ATP Finals, with the top eight players qualifying for the event. Following his recent win, Auger-Aliassime has accumulated 3,395 points in the Race to Turin standings, placing him 290 points behind eighth-place Lorenzo Musetti. A victory in the quarterfinal match against Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot would bring him within 90 points of Musetti, and a tournament win could potentially secure him a spot in the ATP Finals.
After the Paris Masters, opportunities to earn points in the ATP Race to Turin are limited, with only a couple of ATP 250 events scheduled before the ATP Finals commence on November 9. Valentin Vacherot, currently ranked 40th in the world, continued his impressive form by defeating Britain’s Cameron Norrie in the Round of 16. Vacherot, on a 10-match winning streak at the Masters level, recently clinched the ATP 1000 tournament in Shanghai by defeating his cousin Arthur Rinderknech in the final.
