{"id":673829,"date":"2026-01-04T18:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673829\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:45:10","slug":"mboko-auger-aliassime-seal-opening-win-for-canada-in-united-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673829\/","title":{"rendered":"Mboko, Auger-Aliassime seal opening win for Canada in United Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a clean sweep for Canada over China on Sunday at the United Cup in Sydney. Victoria Mboko and Felix Auger-Aliassime won their singles matches, and together they defeated Xiaodi You and Te Rigele 6-1, 6-3 in the mixed doubles to sweep their opening tie in Group B.<\/p>\n<p><strong>United Cup: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/tournaments\/united-cup\/scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Scores<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/tournaments\/united-cup\/results-standings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Standings<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the first singles match of the tie, Mboko came from a set down to beat China\u2019s Lin Zhu and give her country a 1-0 lead. Zhu, who had won the only previous meeting between the two players, made a quick start by winning the first four games. The 31-year-old held that early advantage to close out the opening set 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>Mboko, who enjoyed a breakthrough 2025 season, climbing from outside the top 300 into the top 20, regrouped in the second set. The Canadian won the first four games and took the set 6-2 to force a decider.<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old dominated the final set without dropping a game to seal a 2-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory in 1 hour, 39 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To the start of the match, I felt a little bit off in a way, getting used to the court, getting used to the balls,&#8221; Mboko said to reporters. &#8220;I&#8217;m glad that I kind of found my way in the match, found some sort of momentum to kind of change the match around. Once I kind of got my groove, did what I was usually used to, then I found that I was a bit more myself in a way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was Mboko\u2019s sixth consecutive win on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz after she ended 2025 on a five-match winning streak that earned her the second title of her season in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>In the second singles, Canada&#8217;s Felix Auger-Aliassime carried his strong 2025 form into the new season with a commanding 6-4, 6-4 win over Zhang Zhizhen\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old, at a career-high No. 5 in the PIF ATP Rankings scored his first opening victory of a season since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can be very pleased with this first match of the year,&#8221; Auger-Aliassime said on court. &#8220;Tennis is about rhythm, playing important points under pressure, so you never know what to expect. I woke up this morning hoping for the best, and then I played some of my best tennis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Auger-Aliassime ended the 2025 season in fine form, highlighted by a semifinal run at the US Open, a title at the ATP 250 in Brussels and a last-four finish at the prestigious Nitto ATP Finals. He showed no signs of slowing down as he launched his 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>His serve proved especially decisive against Zhang, as he won 87% (33\/38) points behind his first delivery and saved the only break point he faced to level their Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 1-1.<\/p>\n<p>Canada will next take on Belgium, and a victory would will guarantee a quarterfinal spot for the Canadians.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a clean sweep for Canada over China on Sunday at the United Cup in Sydney. Victoria&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-673829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115838315687389186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}