Victoria Mboko has made a sensational breakthrough as a wildcard at the 2025 Canadian Open, but how much do you know about the rising star\u2019s family?<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old has seen off Kimberly Birrell, Sofia Kenin, Marie Bouzkova, Coco Gauff and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro to reach the semi-finals in Montreal for the loss of just one set<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mboko<\/a>\u00a0was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 26, 2006 to Cyprien Mboko and Godee Kitadi.<\/p>\n Cyprien and Godee are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and left the country due to war and political turmoil.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0OnTennis magazine<\/a>,\u00a0Godee moved to Montreal in 1999 when nine months pregnant with her and Cyprien\u2019s third child, David.\u00a0Godee\u00a0earned a degree in accounting from the Universite de Montreal.<\/p>\n In 2000, Cyprien moved to\u00a0North Carolina, where the family settled.\u00a0The Mboko family then moved to Toronto in 2006 when Victoria \u2014 who is the youngest of four siblings \u2014 was two months old.<\/p>\n Victoria started playing tennis at the age of three in Toronto after her sister Gracia, and brothers Kevin and David, had already took up the sport.<\/p>\n Cyprien\u2019s affection for the sport was a driving factor in his children playing tennis.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been watching tennis since I was very young,\u201d Cyprien Mboko told OnTennis magazine.<\/p>\n \u201cMy friend and I, back home in the Congo, would watch [Andre] Agassi, [Jim] Courier, [Steffi] Graf and all the other great players.<\/p>\n \u201cTennis was good exercise for our children, but I must have bought about 1,000 balls from Walmart and they all seemed to end up in the bushes.<\/p>\n Who is Victoria Mboko\u2019s coach? How former Wimbledon finalist is guiding rising star<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n How Victoria Mboko followed in two former world No 1 players\u2019 footsteps at the Canadian Open<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAt that point, we decided to see about some coaching. Gracia was identified by a local tennis pro and he used to take her from Charlotte, where we were living, to Concord every day for training. I would pick her up after work.\u201d<\/p>\n Godee told the same publication:\u00a0\u201cMy kids started training at Players Edge at the Aviva Centre with Marc Assaraf and Bill Cowan. Then I met Pierre Lamarche, who suggested we could move to Burlington to train at his academy, Ace Tennis. We moved there in 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n Two of Mboko\u2019s siblings \u2014 her sister, Gracia, and her older brother, Kevin \u2014 played college tennis.<\/p>\n Gracia, who is the oldest of the siblings, earned a tennis scholarship at the University of Denver, while Kevin earned a tennis scholarship at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n Her younger brother, David, was also described as a \u201cvery talented\u201d player by\u00a0OnTennis magazine, but he was forced to stop tennis\u00a0due to eye problems. David graduated with a computer science degree from the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n Speaking to\u00a0OnTennis magazine in 2021, Mboko revealed the key role her siblings played in her tennis career.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sister and brothers have been really important for me. I probably would not have played tennis if not for them. They played with me and coached me,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n The 18-year-old also revealed she has never beaten her sister or brothers at tennis.<\/p>\n \u201cI just remember watching them from the sidelines and not wanting to be left out,\u201d Mboko\u00a0said\u00a0in an interview with the WTA website.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve actually never beaten any of them. I never like to lose a lot. I played my sister once in a tournament and I lost 0 and 0. I was absolutely devastated. They still hold that over me to this day!\u201d<\/p>\n Mboko was supported by her father, sister and brother at the\u00a02025 French Open, where she reached the third round as a qualifier.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the stands were my father, my sister, and my brother,\u201d Mboko\u00a0revealed in Paris.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth my brothers are older than me, much older, so I feel they have much more experience in tennis than I do, although I think I am now competing at a higher level than theirs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey all support me a lot, they are all very positive with me every day and even more on match days. All these people are key to my development and how I project myself.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father, I feel like he\u2019s made a lot of sacrifices for me.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s retired now, but, you know, when I was training a lot, he was working night shifts so he could be at every single one of my practices, especially when I was a junior.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a05 youngest women to beat No 1 seed at a WTA 1000 event: Victoria Mboko joins Coco Gauff, Mirra Andreeva<\/a> The post Who are Victoria Mboko\u2019s parents and siblings? Canadian star\u2019s family inspired her rise<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victoria Mboko has made a sensational breakthrough as a wildcard at the 2025 Canadian Open, but how much do you know about the rising star\u2019s family? The 18-year-old has seen off Kimberly Birrell, Sofia Kenin, Marie Bouzkova, Coco Gauff and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro to reach the semi-finals in Montreal for the loss of just one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Victoria Mboko\u2019s parents<\/h2>\n
Victoria Mboko News<\/h2>\n
The influence of Mboko\u2019s siblings<\/h2>\n
What else has Mboko said about her family?<\/h2>\n
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