{"id":388277,"date":"2026-01-03T04:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388277\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T04:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:38:09","slug":"elise-mertens-win-first-leg-for-belgium-in-united-cup-clash-vs-chinas-lin-zhu-22-shot-rally-video-result-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388277\/","title":{"rendered":"Elise Mertens win first leg for Belgium in United Cup clash vs China’s Lin Zhu; 22-shot rally video, result, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elise Mertens got her United Cup<\/a> campaign off to an absolute flyer and stunned her rival in the opening game on Saturday morning (AEDT).<\/p>\n

The world No.20 started Belgium’s clash with China in style when she broke Lin Zhu’s serve early in the first set after an epic rally.<\/p>\n

Zhu looked all-but certain to claim the point, but after a 22-shot rally it was Mertens who clinched it with a spectacular looping backhand over her opponent’s head.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Tsitsipas puts injury behind him in hot United Cup start<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Smith denies retirement talk as SCG mystery deepens<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Boxing champ’s driver charged over fatal car accident<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Elise Mertens plays a brilliant shot to win a game against Lin Zhu.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

The crowd in Sydney erupted – as did Mertens’ teammates – as she nonchalantly celebrated the brilliant moment.<\/p>\n

“Why not start with a lungbuster,” Sam Smith said on commentary for Nine.<\/p>\n

“If you didn’t know anything about Elise Mertens, that last point would have told you everything you need to know.”<\/p>\n

The Aussie tennis summer kicks off with the 2026 United Cup from Friday, January 2. Watch it live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mertens took out the first set with relative ease and it was a similar story in the second set, rolling past Zhu for a 6-2, 6-1 win to give Belgium the early lead.<\/p>\n

“It’s an amazing atmosphere and I’m very happy to be back and start on a good note,” she told Nine’s Mark Petchey post-match.<\/p>\n

“I just turned 30 – I think I can improve every day, which I try to do.”<\/p>\n

Zizou Bergs will face Zhizhen Zhang in the men’s leg of the three-match tie, before the mixed doubles clash later on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Australia will play Norway in the Saturday night fixtures when Alex de Minaur and Casper Ruud go head-to-head in an early blockbuster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elise Mertens got her United Cup campaign off to an absolute flyer and stunned her rival in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-388277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}