Experience beat youth on Tuesday at the United Cup, as a determined Elise Mertens secured Belgium’s victory over Canada with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 triumph against Victoria Mboko. Her 2 hour and 5-minute triumph followed a stunning 6-4, 6-2 win by Zizou Bergs against ATP World No. 5 Felix Auger-Aliassime, putting Belgium on the brink of the quarterfinals.
United Cup: Scores | Standings
Despite winning the tie, the Belgians need a clean sweep to advance. If Canada wins mixed doubles, then it advances to the knockout rounds.
After coming from a set behind to defeat China’s Zhu Lin in her opening match of the week, there was no similar escape for the 19-year-old against Mertens.
The Belgian rode a stellar serving performance to a one-set lead, holding at love in each of her first four service games and breaking Mboko decisively to love in the sixth game as well. Though Mboko showed the fighting spirit that earned her 15 three-set wins in 2025 on the way to being crowned the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz Newcomer of the Year to push the match the distance, she was unable to create any break point chances in the decider either. Mertens earned the decisive break of serve in the fourth game from a 30-0 deficit, and won a staggering 93% of points behind her first serve in the match overall.
“I’m absolutely pumped … I’m very happy with the point for Belgium,” “Also well-played to my opponent. She’s up and coming, she’s really young — she’s more than 10 years younger than me!
“I’m most proud of how I [started] the beginning of the third set. I really wanted to get that point, and of course, I had the team behind me. I got a little bit of experience already, but of course you always feel a little bit nervous. That’s the game, tennis, a lot of emotions, but I’m very pleased about [the win].”
Bergs, 26, had lost his first match of the season earlier in the week against China’s Zhang Zhizhen before securing his second career Top 10 victory in 1 hour and 28 minutes, having also defeated then-World No. 9 Andrey Rublev 10 months ago in Miami.
“Really happy with the performance. I think this shows also our strength we have. We can fall down, but we will get back up and try to be better [than] we were the day before,” Bergs said. “This is what we do, and I’m also very thankful to have that team around me.”
A Belgian man had never previously earned a win at the United Cup.
“I actually forgot this was my second Top-10 win, so that’s really huge, actually, especially with a convincing way of playing,” Bergs said. “I just looked at it as a match. This is a a little different format, so we’re still down. We still have to win a lot of matches today, so that was more the focus and today I just had to get the job done.”
Auger-Aliassime enjoyed the best season of his career in 2025, reaching the US Open semi-finals and competing in the Nitto ATP Finals. He looked sharp in his first match of the season against Zhang, but was unable to dominate the same way against Bergs, who saved all five break points he faced.