{"id":26672,"date":"2026-06-28T16:43:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/26672\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T16:43:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:43:31","slug":"zizou-bergs-wins-maiden-atp-singles-title-in-eastbourne-to-become-first-belgian-man-to-win-an-atp-singles-title-on-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/26672\/","title":{"rendered":"Zizou Bergs Wins Maiden ATP Singles Title In Eastbourne To Become First Belgian Man To Win An ATP Singles Title On Grass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Randy Walker<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">@TennisPublisher<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The public address announcer at the Lexus Eastbourne Open enthusiastically exclaimed during the champions trophy part of the post-match ceremony that Zizou Bergs was the first Belgium player to ever win an ATP singles title on grass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is just the cherry on top of a summer sundae for the 27-year old Belgian whose 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 final-round win over Ugo Humbert gave him his first career ATP singles title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Belgium is about the size of Maryland and has a population of about 12 million but has only had six other players earn ATP singles titles \u2013 except non on grass before Bergs.<\/p>\n<tr>\n<td>Player<\/td>\n<td>ATP singles titles<\/td>\n<td>Years of titles<\/td>\n<td>Career note<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>David Goffin<\/td>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>2014\u20132022<\/td>\n<td>Belgium\u2019s greatest men\u2019s singles player; reached No. 7 in the ATP rankings and played the 2017 ATP Finals championship match.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Xavier Malisse<\/td>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>2005\u20132007<\/td>\n<td>Powerful shot-maker; reached a career-high No. 19 and was Belgium\u2019s top male player before Goffin\u2019s rise.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Olivier Rochus<\/td>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>2000, 2006<\/td>\n<td>The 5\u20196\u2033 Belgian reached No. 24 in the world and won two ATP singles titles.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Steve Darcis<\/td>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>2007, 2014<\/td>\n<td>Won his first ATP title in Amersfoort in 2007 and was famous for his 2013 Wimbledon first-round upset of Rafael Nadal.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Kristof Vliegen<\/td>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>2006<\/td>\n<td>Reached a career-high No. 30 and captured one ATP singles title.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Kimmer Coppejans<\/td>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>2015<\/td>\n<td>Won his only ATP title at Casablanca in 2015.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The women from Belgum have fared better on grass, of course led by Justin Henin and Kim Clijsters.<\/p>\n<tr>\n<td>Player<\/td>\n<td>Grass-court WTA singles titles<\/td>\n<td>Events won<\/td>\n<td>Notes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Justine Henin<\/td>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Eastbourne International (2006, 2007), Rosmalen Grass Court Championships (2001)<\/td>\n<td>Henin won 43 WTA singles titles overall and reached two Wimbledon finals (2001, 2006).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Kim Clijsters<\/td>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>Wimbledon Championships (2003 doubles, not singles), and singles titles at Eastbourne (2005, 2006)<\/td>\n<td>Clijsters won 41 WTA singles titles overall and was a former world No. 1.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Yanina Wickmayer<\/td>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Lib\u00e9ma Open (2009)<\/td>\n<td>Won three WTA singles titles overall and reached the 2009 US Open semifinals.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Eastbourne final was a \u201cthird time is a charm\u201d result for the 27-year-old world No. 47.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0He reached his first ATP final in Auckland in 2025 and another final at \u2019s-Hertogenbosch, but both opportunities ended without a trophy.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bergsgraphic-682x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28021 lazyload\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bergsgraphic.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28021 lazyload\"  \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Randy Walker @TennisPublisher The public address announcer at the Lexus Eastbourne Open enthusiastically exclaimed during the champions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1137],"tags":[1139,431,6595,1140,1643],"class_list":["post-26672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atp-finals","tag-atp-finals","tag-belgium","tag-eastbourne","tag-nitto-atp-finals","tag-zizou-bergs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}