Elise Mertens came into her third-round match at Wimbledon in 2026 having won one of her eight meetings with Elena Rybakina. The Belgian, seeded 25th, beat the former champion 7-6(4), 6-1 on Court 1, according to Outlook India’s live report, and went on to her first Wimbledon singles quarterfinal. There Linda Noskova beat her 6-3, 7-5. At 30, it was a reminder that one of the best doubles players of her generation has never stopped being a top-20 singles player as well.
Early career and the Melbourne semifinal
Mertens was born on 17 November 1995 in Leuven and turned professional in 2013. Her first WTA singles title came in Hobart in 2017, and she defended it a year later. The 2018 season was her breakthrough: she reached the Australian Open semifinals and added titles in Rabat and Lugano. In November of that year she reached her career-high singles ranking of No. 12.
She won Doha in 2019 and reached back-to-back US Open quarterfinals in 2019 and 2020.
The doubles career
Her first major title came at the 2019 US Open, with Aryna Sabalenka. With Hsieh Su-wei she won Wimbledon in 2021, saving two championship points along the way, and the Australian Open in 2024. On 10 May 2021 she became world No. 1 in doubles, the third Belgian to reach No. 1 in either singles or doubles after Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.
Her partnership with Veronika Kudermetova produced two WTA Finals titles, in 2022 and 2025, and the 2025 Wimbledon title, won 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 over Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko. In January 2026 she won the Australian Open with Zhang Shuai, 7-6(4), 6-4 over Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic. That was her sixth major. In the second round the pair had saved three match points against Iva Jovic and Victoria Mboko. The WTA lists 24 career doubles titles.
Singles titles since 2021
Mertens won the Gippsland Trophy in Melbourne in 2021, beating Kaia Kanepi 6-4, 6-1 in the final. She won Monastir in 2022 and defended it in 2023. In 2025 she won ‘s-Hertogenbosch on grass and Singapore indoors, taking her singles total to ten. She has also lost six singles finals, two of them in Hobart.
Playing style
Mertens is a right-hander with a two-handed backhand, listed at 1.79m. Her results cover hard courts, clay and grass: titles on all three, a Melbourne semifinal, New York quarterfinals and, at last, a Wimbledon quarterfinal. In the Rybakina upset, Outlook India’s report credited her steadiness from the baseline and her serving in the first-set tiebreak before she ran away with the second set.
Grand Slam record
- Singles — Australian Open: semifinals (2018); Roland Garros: fourth round (2018, 2022, 2023); Wimbledon: quarterfinals (2026); US Open: quarterfinals (2019, 2020)
- Doubles — Australian Open: champion (2021, 2024, 2026); Roland Garros: semifinals (2019); Wimbledon: champion (2021, 2025); US Open: champion (2019)
Season snapshot — 17 September 2026
Ranked No. 20 in singles as of 31 August 2026, with a career high of No. 12, and No. 8 in doubles. Career singles titles: 10. Career doubles titles: 24.
The Australian Open doubles title with Zhang and the Wimbledon singles quarterfinal are the highlights of her season so far. The Asian swing is next.
This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.
