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 win followed a stunning 6-4, 6-2 victory by Zizou Bergs against World No. 5 Felix Auger-Aliassime, putting Belgium on the brink of the quarterfinals.
Path to Advancement
Despite winning the tie, the Belgdigihunt require a clean sweep to advance. If Canada wins the mixed doubles, they will progress to the knockout rounds.
Mertens showcased a stellar serving performance, taking a one-set lead by holding at love in each of her first four service games and breaking Mboko decisively to love in the sixth game. Although Mboko demonstrated fighting spirit, Mertens earned the crucial break of serve in the fourth game from a 30-0 deficit and won an impressive 93% of points behind her first serve overall, according to WTA reports.
Bergs Makes History
Earlier, Bergs secured his second career Top 10 victory in 1 hour and 28 minutes over Auger-Aliassime, having also defeated then-World No. 9 Andrey Rublev 10 months ago in Miami.
“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 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,” he added.
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 in the same manner against Bergs, who saved all five break points he faced.