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As long as she could remember, Boko was already aware of her competitive fire. When she first started playing tennis, she was three years old, and it was what she called “destiny” decision because her three big siblings played and she wanted to do anything. Even in the toddler, she was sure she could beat her sister Gracia in one game.
“From the moment I started, I always felt good, even if I might not be like that,” Mboko told SportsNet last week. The youngest Mboko kid wanted to play with Gracia and her brothers Kevin and David, who were 12 and 10, but they would tell her, “No, you’re too few,” so she played with her dad. “But I think I always feel better than my sister, I want to beat her, so in a sense, I think I’m fine.”
At that time, she and her family lived west of Toronto and moved from North Carolina where she was born. Mboko said her family moved to Canada for tennis “90% sure” so that her three siblings could go to the North End of Toronto Academy called “Player Edge”. Both Gracia and Kevin have worked in NCAA careers, and Mboko himself spent a lot of time at the academy. “I think overall, I kind of forced my dad to take me more classes and make a lot of friends along the way,” she explained. “I always go to tennis courts and college all day.”
