United Cup Canada stumbles against Belgium and is eliminated

(Sydney) Canada only needed a victory in three games against Belgium to finish first in Group B at the United Cup, but it never materialized on Tuesday. And rather than celebrate, the representatives of the maple leaf had to pack up.

Félix Auger-Aliassime and Victoria Mboko, in singles, then Mboko and Cleeve Harper, in mixed doubles, all lost, allowing Belgium to win 3-0. This victory granted first place and a ticket to the quarter-finals for the Belgians, and confirmed the elimination of the Canadians.

The mixed doubles match represented Canada’s last chance to stay ahead of Belgium and, for the occasion, Auger-Aliassime was replaced by Harper, ranked 94^e in duplicate.

The Canadian pair forced the super tiebreaker by coming from behind, but were still beaten 6-3, 3.6 and 10-5 by Zizou Bergs and Elise Mertens.

Mboko and Harper managed the only break of the second set after losing their serve three times themselves in the first set. However, they conceded the first three points in the tiebreaker and were never able to erase that deficit.

During the first match of this clash, Auger-Aliassime (fifth) was surprised by Bergs (42^e) in two sets of 6-4 and 6-2.

Auger-Aliassime was broken from the start, then suffered two new breaks in the second round. Bergs erased all five break points at his expense to sign only his second career victory against a player from top 10.

He defeated Andrey Rublev, then ninth in the world, last year in Miami.

“I completely forgot that this was my second win against a top 10 player, so it’s really huge, especially with such convincing play,” Bergs commented, according to the competition’s official website.

Auger-Aliassime won his first match of the year against Zhang Zhizhen, during Canada’s clash against China on Sunday.

Mboko (18^e) was also unable to secure this crucial victory in the women’s singles match, while Mertens (19^e) won 6-3, 3-6 and 6-3.

Both players earned a break and held on to their lead to win the sets in their first WTA Tour duel.

Mboko hit nine aces, but committed six double faults. She faced seven break points.

Mertens was incisive with her first ball, winning 93% of the rallies when she was in play. She also erased two of the three break points at her expense.