M
boko has felt a spark of competition within her for as long as she can remember. Starting tennis at the age of three was more than just a hobby; it was her destiny—especially since her three older siblings were already playing, and she was determined to join in on their fun. Even as a young child, she was resolute in her belief that she could best her sister, Gracia, who was 13 at the time, in a match.
“From my very first moment on the court, I believed I had talent—though I might have been mistaken,” Mboko shared with Sportsnet last week during her matches at the Mubadala Citi DC Open, where she impressively advanced to the second round. The youngest of the Mboko family eagerly sought to compete with Gracia, along with her brothers, Kevin and David, who were then 12 and 10. Yet, they would often say, “No, you’re too small,” leading her to practice with her dad instead. “I always had this feeling that I was better than my sister, and that drove me to want to beat her, so in a way, my confidence was justifiable,” she explained.
At that point, she and her family had settled just west of Toronto after moving from North Carolina, her birthplace. Mboko is “90 percent sure” that the family’s move to Canada was inspired by tennis, aimed at enrolling her siblings in the renowned Players Edge academy located in the northern part of Toronto. Both Gracia and Kevin went on to have NCAA tennis careers, and Mboko found herself frequently at the academy too. “I think I practically convinced my dad to enroll me in more lessons, and in the process, I met a lot of friends,” she recalls. “My days were filled with tennis, whether at the courts or at the academy.”
