Jannik Sinner acknowledged the role of fortune in a pivotal Wimbledon moment and used it as motivation heading into his title defence at the Cincinnati Open.

Grigor Dimitrov was leading two sets to love in their round of 16 match at Wimbledon before a pectoral muscle injury forced him to withdraw. “I was lucky against Grigor, but I took it as a sign,” Sinner said. “You never know what can happen and that’s how it is in tennis. So you have to try to understand why and how certain things happen.

“And after that match, I really raised my level of play, and I played some of the best tennis I could play. It was a very emotional moment for me, and I was able to celebrate with my team.”

Sinner, the world No.1, arrives in Cincinnati seeking to retain the title he won there previously. He will face Daniel Elahi Galan in the Round of 16 and used the run from Wimbledon as a reference point for his mindset.

On the conditions in Cincinnati he offered a striking observation about the balls: “From my point of view, the tennis balls are getting smaller,” he said ahead of his Round of 16 match against Daniel Elahi Galan. “The more you play, the smaller they get.

“That is very strange because usually they open up and get slower, but here they get actually faster.

“The ball bounces much higher. We haven’t had one very windy day yet, but it’s going to be very difficult if there’s going to be wind here.

“We saw it last year, remember the match against Andrey was super difficult, so it’s very difficult and it’s going to be a mental game. I am trying to accept every situation on the court and trying to be ready.”

Sinner confirmed he will wear an arm sleeve in Cincinnati as he did at Wimbledon but insisted it was not for pain. “The elbow does not hurt, but I like the sensation that gives the sleeve,” he said. “It gives a little more stability in the impact with the ball. I had also used it at Wimbledon and I liked it.”

Less than 24 hours after contesting a three-set Omnium Banque Nationale final, Victoria Mboko and Naomi Osaka withdrew from the Cincinnati Open.

Mboko, who won her first WTA title at the 1000-level event in Montréal, cited a left wrist injury as the reason for her withdrawal. Osaka cited a change in schedule. Both players had been granted performance byes into the second round of the Cincinnati Open by virtue of reaching the Montréal final, a measure implemented to accommodate the quick turnaround between the two tournaments that ended and began on Thursday.

Coco Gauff, who arrived in Cincinnati on Thursday after a Wednesday afternoon win in the Montréal women’s doubles tournament, raised concerns about the tight transition during her Media Day press conference. “If I had to put input, I would say that overlapping is just tough for all players involved, even on the doubles aspect,” said the world No. 2, who revealed she had pushed the tournament to schedule the women’s doubles final on Wednesday to give her time to travel to Cincinnati.

“I think two-week tournaments are tough. I don’t mind them as much but it is tougher when they do overlap because of the conditions. I haven’t practiced yet, but I know from the past that the conditions are quite different. We’ll see how these two weeks go and we’ll see what they decide, whether this format will continue or not.”

The withdrawals underline the logistical strain produced by back-to-back events in Montréal and Cincinnati and the role of performance byes intended to ease that strain. Tournament schedules and player recovery will remain points of attention as the season progresses.

It is rare to witness such clear improvement across weeks at the highest level. At the National Bank Open in Montreal and Toronto two young players, 18-year-old Victoria Mboko and 22-year-old Ben Shelton, elevated their games round after round and did not stop until each had a 1000-level title.

Mboko’s run in Montreal carried the urgency of a storybook week. A wild card in her first WTA 1000 event, she began 2025 largely unknown outside the ITF circuit. She left with victories over Sofia Kenin, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina and Naomi Osaka, and a leap from No. 85 to No. 24. Mboko is now the highest-ranked Canadian on either tour, ahead of No. 26 Leylah Fernandez, No. 28 Felix Auger-Aliassime, No. 30 Denis Shapovalov and No. 35 Gabriel Diallo.

Her game showed new power and reliability. She led the tournament in aces, traded heavy shots with Rybakina and Osaka, and repeatedly recovered from slow starts. On handling first-set deficits she said, “When I kind of go into the match, I always think of sets as, like, checkpoints,” and “I kind of try to switch my mindset as much as possible and kind of switch up how I go about things when I’m playing the match. I think whenever I play the second set, I feel like I put a lot more emphasis in my movement and my defending skills and what I’m supposed to do on court, and I try to sharpen up and clean up a lot of my mistakes.”

Osaka acknowledged the week’s emotion: “Thanks, I guess,” and later, “This morning I was very grateful. I don’t know why my emotions flipped so quickly, but I’m really happy to have played the final. I think Victoria played really well. I completely forgot to congratulate her on the court. Yeah, I mean, she did really amazing.”

Shelton’s title in Toronto was different in tone but equal in consequence. He showed a more complete game than in his early years, surviving three third-set tiebreakers and beating Top 10 opponents Taylor Fritz and Alex de Minaur. Two passages in the final crystallized his week: a rally of drop shots and backhand winners to turn a set, and an opening run in the third-set tiebreak. Shelton credited a tactical shift: “Karen was bullying me around the court,” and described moving forward to redirect and flip momentum. “It’s been a long week,” Shelton said. “Not an easy path, not an easy week by any means. I was clutch, I was resilient, a lot of qualities that I like to see in myself.”

Shelton could break into the Top 5 after Cincinnati with a deep run at the Masters 1000 event.