American Caty McNally entered her second-round match against World No. 10 Victoria Mboko at the Mutua Madrid Open on Friday carrying two streaks she hoped to break. She was 0-8 against Top 10 opposition — and 0-12 against the Top 20 — and hadn’t won back-to-back main-draw matches on clay in five years.

But after 1 hour and 19 minutes on court, both of those were snapped as the two-time Grand Slam doubles finalist notched one of the biggest victories of her career with a 6-4, 6-1 upset that moved her through to the third round at the Caja Magica for the first time.

McNally spent eight months on the sidelines in 2024 following wrist surgery, and spent much of last year rebuilding her position in the PIF WTA Rankings to her current perch of No. 76. In that time there were flashes of the form that took her to a previous 2023 singles high mark of No. 54 — like when she was the only player to win a set against Iga Swiatek in her title run at Wimbledon last summer, and her doubles prowess quickly restored itself to the tune of a pair of WTA 500 finals in the last eight months.

Flying solo, she put it all together to score far and away her best win by ranking over Mboko, who beat her in straight sets at the Australian Open in January. At that time, the Canadian was not yet a Top 10 player — but in McNally’s eight previous losses to such opponents, she won a set in five.

It was something that was on her mind as she faced Mboko, she confessed afterwards — as was her her long road back to the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz.

This time last year, she was ranked No. 287 in her comeback, and was playing on the ITF World Tennis Tour.

“I feel like I’ve been knocking on the door for a little while with some of these really great players — winning a set off them but not really being able to string together two sets,” McNally said post-match. “Today, I just stayed so tough and I’m just so proud of that. I played some really solid tennis and it’s such a nice feeling.”

“I love playing matches like this and seeing where my level is at — I’m proving to myself that I’m there,” McNally added. “She’s an amazing player and we’ve had some great matches. At one point, I had to take a step back and realize the journey I’ve on to get here. To realize I’m in Madrid, Spain playing on basically a full court; that’s such a privilege. Just having that perspective allowed me to enjoy it a little bit more.”

Mboko, making her tournament debut, was also playing her first match of the clay-court season. She struggled to adapt to both the conditions and McNally’s variety to see a 13-match winning streak against players ranked outside the Top 50 end.

She racked up 47 unforced errors in defeat, double faulted six times, and only created one break point on return as McNally landed 80% of her first serves. Mboko faced 12 break points in all, and McNally won four.

Bidding for a first career Round of 16 at a WTA 1000 event, McNally will next face another player who knows her way around a doubles court in Katerina Siniakova. The Czech rolled over lucky loser Anna Blinkova 6-2, 6-2 earlier on Wednesday following a late withdrawal by No. 17 seed Clara Tauson.