Montreal Finalists Mboko and Osaka Both Withdraw From Cincinnati Open

This year's finalists from the WTA 1000 event in Montreal won't compete at the Cincinnati Open, as both withdrew from the tournament.

When the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Novak Djokovic withdrew from the Canadian Open this year, the challenging schedule that tennis players have to deal with came into the spotlight once again.

With the ATP and WTA 1000 events now being extended to two-week tournaments, there is much less time for players to rest, which applies to both before and after the Canadian Open.

To help the players, the WTA used a rule, which is rarely used, and caused some controversy in the past. The performance byes were re-introduced for the 2025 Cincinnati Open.

Since they both made it to the final in Montreal and weren't among the seeded players in Cincinnati, both Victoria Mboko and Naomi Osaka received performance byes for the Cincinnati Open.

That meant that, like all seeded players, they didn't have to play their first-round match. Osaka was set to play against Linda Noskova in the second round, while Mboko should have challenged Diana Shnaider.

However, neither of them will appear in Toronto, as both Mboko and Osaka withdrew from the WTA 1000 tournament. Mboko has struggled with a wrist injury during her title run in Montreal.

Since Mboko and Osaka received performance byes in Cincinnati, their withdrawals have caused an even more unusual situation. After their withdrawals, they were both, of course, replaced by lucky losers.

However, the byes were removed from those players, and instead, two more lucky losers made it to the main draw, creating two matchups between two lucky losers. That means that two withdrawals helped four players to enter the main draw.

Home player Iva Jovic used this to her advantage, beating Solana Sierra 6-3, 7-6(4), to set up a meeting with Noskova. Yue Yuan was the other player who used her chance, beating Cristina Bucsa 6-2, 6-2, to set up a match with Diana Shnaider.

Although the finals were played on the same day, the men's Canadian Open finalists, Ben Shelton and Karen Khachanov, took a different approach than Mboko and Osaka.

Only about 24 hours after their final meeting in Toronto, they were both already seen laughing together in the players' gym in Cincinnati. Both should compete at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati.

Shelton is the fifth seed, and he will play against Camilo Ugo Carabelli, who bested Kei Nishikori in the first round. Khachanov, on the other hand, will start against Valentin Royer, who outplayed Sebastian Ofner.