{"id":390943,"date":"2026-01-06T04:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390943\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T04:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:01:10","slug":"canada-v-belgium-tie-felix-auger-aliassime-defeated-by-zizou-bergs-upset-victory-elise-mertens-defeats-victoria-mboko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390943\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada v Belgium tie, Felix Auger-Aliassime defeated by Zizou Bergs upset victory; Elise Mertens defeats Victoria Mboko"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgian Zizou Bergs has secured the biggest win of his career, stunning world No.5 Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a> 6-4, 6-2 to light up the United Cup<\/a> in Sydney on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The win handed Belgium a surprise 1-0 lead against Canada, while also delivering Bergs his first-ever top-five victory.<\/p>\n

With the win, Bergs becomes the first Belgian man in history to secure a singles victory at the United Cup.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

A dejected Felix Auger-Aliassime reacts during his shock defeat to Zizou Bergs at the United Cup.\u00a0Brett Hemmings via Getty Images<\/p>\n

After dropping his season opener to China’s Zhang Zhizhen after struggling to make inroads on return, the 26-year-old Bergs bounced back emphatically to stun Auger-Aliassime in one hour and 28 minutes.<\/p>\n

“Really happy with the performance. I think this also shows our strength we have,” Bergs said post-match.<\/p>\n

“We can fall down, but we will get back up and try to be better [than] we were the day before.<\/p>\n

“This is what we do, and I’m also very thankful to have that team around me.”<\/p>\n

The victory was the second top-10 win of Bergs’ career. He previously upset then-world No.9 Andrey Rublev in straight sets at the Miami Open last March.<\/p>\n

\"Zizou<\/p>\n

Zizou Bergs celebrates a historic straight-sets victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime at the United Cup.\u00a0Brett Hemmings via Getty Images<\/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

“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.<\/p>\n

“I just looked at it as a match.<\/p>\n

“This is 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.”<\/p>\n

Canada entered the tie in the box seat, needing just a single match win to top Group B and progress to the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

However, the door remains open for Belgium; a clean 3-0 sweep would see the nation leapfrog the Canadians to claim the group.<\/p>\n

Auger-Aliassime entered the new year on a high after a career-best 2025, which was highlighted by a US Open semi-final run and a deep showing at the ATP Finals.<\/p>\n

While he looked sharp in his opening-day win over Zhang, he met a brick wall in Bergs; the world No.42 refused to blink under pressure, saving all five break points to deny Auger-Aliassime any foothold in the match.<\/p>\n

In the second rubber, Belgian star Elise Mertens took on Canadian teen sensation Victoria Mboko in a high-stakes top-20 showdown.<\/p>\n

Serving struggles proved costly for Mboko in the opening frame, as a string of double faults allowed Mertens to clinically claim the first set 6-3.<\/p>\n

However, the 19-year-old found another gear in the second, shaking off those early nerves to level the match and force a deciding set.<\/p>\n

The comeback began with a pivotal hold, as Mboko staved off a break point in the opening game before immediately turning the tables on Mertens, breaking the Belgian’s serve to power through a 6-3 set.<\/p>\n

Mertens secured a decisive break in the fourth game of the third set and held firm to consolidate, leaving Mboko visibly frustrated as the match began to slip away.<\/p>\n

The world No.19 served out the match, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to secure the tie for Belgium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgian Zizou Bergs has secured the biggest win of his career, stunning world No.5 Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-390943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}