Who to Watch
Elise Mertens and Zizou Bergs: I’m not sure what kind of crowd Belgium vs. China is going to draw at 10:30 in the morning in Sydney. But the two Belgian singles players, Mertens and Bergs, both give full value to paying customers with their competitive qualities alone. Mertens we’ve known about for years, but the 26-year-old, 42nd-ranked Bergs raised his profile considerably with his Davis Cup performance a few months ago in Italy. He lost to Flavio Cobolli in the year’s most dramatic tiebreaker, and one of its best matches. But with his backwards baseball hat, stomping gait, and flat ground-stroke attack, he brought back pleasant memories of another no-frills warrior, David Ferrer.
Mertens will play Zhu Lin; Bergs will play Zhang Zhizhen.
Maya Joint: As 2024 began, Joint was a teenager from Michigan who was planning to play college tennis for the Texas Longhorns. Two years later, she’s an Australian pro with a pair of WTA titles, a No. 32 ranking, and the promise of more. Like Osaka, she’s a player who got away from us—us as in the United States. While she grew up in the midwest, her father is Michael Joint, a former squash pro from Australia, and she chose to play for his nation and train Down Under.
Whatever flag she flies, Joint is a interesting in part for how much she doesn’t look like a pro athlete—until she puts a superbly timed, sometimes-leaping wallop on the ball. Unfortunately, she has been sick this week and missed practice sessions. Here’s hoping she’s well enough to start her 2026 against Norway’s Malene Helgo, in front of what I’m assuming will be a raucous pro-Aussie crowd.
