During the US Open, former World No. 25 Fernando Meligeni wrote a philosophical Instagram post about the relationship between Carlos Alcaraz and his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero. The first line read “No nos rendimos”, a Portgueuse phrase that means “Never give up”.

One person who took notice was his nephew, Felipe Meligeni Alves, who is a member of Team Brazil at the United Cup. The 24-year-old, who earned his first ATP Tour win on Saturday against Norwegian Viktor Durasovic, took the message to heart. He got the message tattooed on his left arm.

“I just like to motivate myself,” Meligeni Alves told ATPTour.com. “I just wanted to do it.”

That is far from the only tattoo the Brazilian has. He has another Portuguese message on his right arm that means, “You can’t have big dreams if you don’t chase them”.

That is what the No. 166 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings is doing. The Brazilian is trying to follow in his uncle’s footsteps and leave his mark on the ATP Tour. By the end of 2023, he would like to crack the Top 100.

Some might follow Meligeni Alves’ career through the lens of his uncle’s success — Meligeni reached the 1996 Olympic semi-finals. But the winner of one ATP Challenger Tour title is not concerned about that.

“When I started I was really young and me and my sister, people were saying, ‘He needs to play more like his uncle, he needs to do the same things that he did.’ I was like, ‘Okay, it’s my own path, I will do my own way.’ I just use this in the best way possible,” Meligeni Alves said. “Any time that I need him, he helps me, he talks to me.”

Photo Credit; Tennis Australia
The Brazilian added: “He’s just really good to me. He’s like an example for me, [for] all the players from Brazil. I just want to take the positive things, not the negative, like pressure.”

Meligeni Alves is a deep thinker who enjoys his uncle’s frequent social media posts. That led to the aforementioned tattoo, which is one of many.

The first tattoo he got, against his mother’s wishes, was two intersecting arrows on his left arm with the initials of his family members. Now his entire left arm is covered in tattoos. They include the following:

– A compass: “I did this one pointing in the right direction”

– A wolf: “Courage to do everything”

– A lion, which to him represents family

– A rose, which to him represents confidence

Meligeni Alves also has an homage to his grandfather on his ribs, another to his dog (who passed away) on his back and a sailboat. The latter has no particular meaning, he just felt it fit the area of his lower left bicep.

But the Brazilian is more than his tattoos, and he showed as much on Pat Rafter Arena with an impressive display of shotmaking. He also represented his country well in his opening match against two-time ATP Tour titlist Lorenzo Musetti, falling in a tight two-setter.

Meligeni Alves is enjoying the experience in Brisbane, especially with sister Carolina Alves on the team, too.

“It’s nice to have my sister on the same team. To play on the same team as Bea [Beatriz Haddad Maia], she’s having an amazing experience, she did amazing in 2022, so it’s good to share experiences with these people who are playing the tour more than me, the big events,” Meligeni Alves said. “I’m playing the Grand Slams only and if I can, ATPs. It’s different to play on a big court like this.

“I played against Musetti and I did a really good match, I had my chances. I couldn’t take them but to play in front of so many people in a big stadium like this is special and sharing this with some friends of mine… It’s just a good experience and [I] hope to keep helping Brazil.”

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek showed no signs of rust in her first match of the 2023 season, defeating Yulia Putintseva 6-1, 6-3 at the United Cup. The victory gave second seed Poland a 1-0 lead over Kazakhstan in Brisbane.  

With Polish great Agnieszka Radwanska looking on from the captain’s box, Swiatek needed just three games before finding the rhythm and range that made her the runaway 2022 Hologic WTA Tour Player of the Year. Putintseva earned an early break point chance in Swiatek’s first game, but the Pole coolly erased it with pinpoint accuracy. 

“I’m pretty happy with my performance,” Swiatek said. “First matches of the season are always rusty. I was happy that in the important moments I was really composed.” 

Under pressure again while serving at 1-1, 0/30, Swiatek found another gear to reel off 12 consecutive points to build a 4-1 lead. Having made six unforced errors in the first three games, Swiatek would make just one for the rest of the set, pocketing the set after 27 minutes. 

Swiatek underlined her reputation as the tour’s preeminent front-runner in the second set. After keeping Putintseva at bay in the early games, Swiatek broke to 3-2 and held her lead to win after 64 minutes. Swiatek finished the match with 22 groundstroke winners — 17 on the forehand alone — to just five for Putintseva. The victory extended Swiatek’s head-to-head record against Putintseva to 2-0.  

Timofey Skatov leveled the tie with a gruelling 7-6(7), 6-2 victory against Daniel Michalski. The first set proved critical, with long, grinding rallies that led to the match lasting two hours and 11 minutes.

“It was a really tough match, but actually my captain’s not happy because he said I played too long,” Skatov said in reference to Kazakhstan playing captain Alexander Bublik, who laughed in the team zone. “Today’s new year and we have to celebrate a bit! But okay, I tried to play as fast as possible.”

World No. 142 Skatov saved all five break points he faced against Michalski to earn his first win at the United Cup. The 21-year-old had lost his first No. 2 men’s singles match of the week in three sets against Switzerland’s Marc-Andrea Huesler.

The tie will continue Sunday evening when Bublik faces Polish star Hubert Hurkacz in the No. 1 men’s singles match. Hurkacz leads the pair’s ATP Head2Head series 3-1.

Poland’s Magda Linette will then play crowd favourite Zhibek Kulambayeva in the No. 2 women’s singles match before a possible decider in the mixed doubles inside Pat Rafter Arena.

Cameron Norrie had never won a set in his four previous meetings against Rafael Nadal prior to their clash at the United Cup. However, the World No. 14 turned the tables in dramatic style Saturday when he overcame the 36-year-old 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a statement win to give Team Great Britain a 1-0 lead against Team Spain in Sydney.

In front of a capacity Ken Rosewall Arena crowd, the 27-year-old timed the ball cleanly off both wings, hitting through Nadal with his flat backhand to triumph after two hours and 45 minutes.

Norrie now holds a 2-0 record on the new season, having defeated Australian Alex de Minaur in his opening match at the new mixed-teams event. Great Britain, led by captain Tim Henman, won that opening Group D tie 3-2. Katie Swan will aim to double her nation’s lead when she faces Spaniard Nuria Parrizas Diaz in the last match of the day in Sydney.

In an entertaining clash, Nadal showed great agility to cover the court in the first set, firing an array of stunning passing shots to move ahead. The 36-year-old, playing his first match since the Nitto ATP Finals in November, struggled to maintain his level as the match went on. Norrie upped his intensity to outlast the Spaniard in brutal exchanges.

The four-time tour-level champion gained the crucial break in the sixth game of the second set, before he stepped inside the baseline to dictate in the decider. After breaking, Norrie saved two break points at 3-2, 15/40, before he held his nerve to seal the biggest win of his career by Pepperstone ATP Ranking, letting out a roar.

Bringing ATP and WTA stars together at the United Cup may be something new, but many of the cross-Tour friendships within the 16 competing teams have considerably longer histories.

Take Team Croatia’s Borna Coric and Donna Vekic, who have known each other so long they can barely recall their first meeting.

“I think it was almost 20 years ago, so I don’t remember a lot, but we’ve known each other basically since we started playing tennis,” WTA No. 67 Vekic told ATPTour.com this week in Perth. “We’ve been together for our whole career.”

Coric retains a few more memories of the pair’s early days in their homeland.

“I remember her, we were playing under-10s in Zagreb,” said the No. 26 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, before smiling and starting to tease his teammate about her younger self. “I didn’t like her much back then actually, back then she was very nervous, very arrogant as well, but now she changed. So, I’m just enjoying spending time here with her and the whole team.”

“I don’t remember being arrogant!” laughed Vekic in response. “We’ve been friends for a very long time, and I think it’s maybe the last couple of years that we are even closer than before. We’ve spent almost every week together on Tour [over the years] so it’s good to have a close friend.”

Team 🇭🇷 is ready!! @UnitedCupTennis pic.twitter.com/hO74XIy2Cq

— Donna Vekic (@DonnaVekic) December 28, 2022

That mutual support has helped Coric and Vekic each come through tough challenges in recent years, with both undergoing surgery within three months of each other in early 2021. Coric only returned to the ATP Tour in March 2022 after a year out due to his shoulder injury, while Vekic’s knee operation in February 2021 caused a three-and-a-half-month absence and a longer battle to recapture her pre-surgery form.

Those difficulties made subsequent successes in 2022 even more rewarding for the pair. Coric lifted his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in spectacular fashion at August’s Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, while Vekic took out Top 10 opponents Maria Sakkari and Aryna Sabalenka at the San Diego Open in October, before pushing World No. 1 Iga Swiatek to three sets in the final.

“I’m just happy to see her do well,” said Coric. “She had a very, very tough year with the knee, and I had a very tough year with the shoulder, so obviously I’m super happy to see that she is doing well as well.”

“It’s great when we have success together, but we also went through a very difficult time in our careers, almost at the same time,” added Vekic, who was ranked No. 29 at the time of her operation but has a career-high of No. 19 in the WTA Rankings. “With my knee surgery, his shoulder surgery. It was great to have each other during that time, and now we are back together playing and that’s even more enjoyable.”

There were many highlights during Coric’s barnstorming run in Cincinnati, where he defeated five Top 20 players in a row, including Rafael Nadal, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to the title. Vekic was in the stands supporting her countryman during his second-round triumph against Nadal, although her abiding memory of the weather-affected match has little to do with Coric’s on-court exploits.

“I was super annoyed with that rain delay, I wanted to go back and sleep!” joked Vekic. “But it was a great victory for him, yeah.”

Those positive vibes appear to have carried over into the 2023 season, as Coric and Vekic prepare to spearhead Team Croatia’s United Cup bid alongside WTA No. 38 Petra Martic. On Saturday, Vekic will meet Team Argentina’s Maria Carle while Coric takes on Francisco Cerundolo in their nation’s first tie in Group F.

“We feel great here,” said Vekic. “The atmosphere is amazing. I was in Perth once 10 years ago and I’m really happy to be back. Hopefully we can go through the group stage.

The duo is also slated to team up in Sunday’s mixed-doubles rubber at RAC Arena, although Coric admitted that some hard work on the practice court is required to ensure their on-court combination is ready.

“We will go to the practice court right now and we need to play some doubles, because I haven’t played any doubles for a very long time,” he said. “I think it’s the same for her [Vekic] to be honest… Maybe we played doubles [together] a couple of times, when we were 16 or 17, but we didn’t play together for a very long time, so it’s going to be very interesting if we go on the court and need to play.”

Should Coric and Vekic partner in Sunday’s doubles clash they will certainly hope their respective games are more in synch than their sense of fashion. The pair recently exchanged light-hearted shots on the topic on Twitter.

I think our fashion is still miles ahead of yours 💁🏼‍♀️💃🏼 https://t.co/5T9FYNdSlk

— Donna Vekic (@DonnaVekic) September 7, 2022

“I’m in a safe zone this week,” said Coric, referring to the standardised Team Croatia kit. “I cannot miss, so she cannot say any bad things.”

“I can still make fun of his hair!” retorted a laughing Vekic, a possibility Coric appeared to have already prepared for.

“That’s why I will [keep] my hat on!” he said.

Jiri Lehecka equalled the biggest win of his career by Pepperstone ATP Ranking Saturday when he upset World No. 12 Alexander Zverev 6-4, 6-2 to give Team Czech Republic a lead in its tie against Team Germany at the United Cup. Marie Bouzkova later made it 2-0 for her country.

The 21-year-old Lehecka was pumped up throughout the one-hour, 34-minute clash on Ken Rosewall Arena, producing a clean-hitting display to outlast Zverev in the baseline exchanges. The World No. 81 broke four times and looked sharp at the net, consistently moving forward effectively to finish points.

The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up Lehecka, who also defeated then-World No. 12 Denis Shapovalov en route to the semi-finals in Rotterdam last season, lost against Taylor Fritz in his opening match of the season earlier this week.

However, he gave his nation the perfect start to its tie against Germany as it looks to bounce back from its Group C tie defeat against Team United States.

Bouzkova earned her first win of the season when she defeated World No. 65 Jule Niemeier 6-2, 7-5 to close out a successful day for the Czech squad.

The result gives the Czech’s women’s No. 1, Petra Kvitova, the opportunity to clinch the tie on Sunday when she faces Laura Siegemund.

The duel between Bouzkova and Niemeier featured two of last year’s surprise Wimbledon quarter-finalists. It was a contrast of styles, pitting Niemeier’s big groundstrokes against Bouzkova’s crafty athleticism. The German had the power edge, but Bouzkova showed why she excels on fast surfaces, as she unwound Niemeier with her mix of spins and angle, drawing out 34 unforced errors.

Niemeier struggled to get into Bouzkova’s service games, but converted her only break point late in the match as the Czech served for the win at 6-2, 5-4, saving two match points along the way. But Bouzkova was unnerved, breaking back immediately and serving out the win after one hour and 49 minutes.

World No. 15 Beatriz Haddad Maia improved her United Cup record to 2-0 after defeating Malene Helgo of Norway 6-4, 6-2 on Day 3 in Brisbane. The victory kicked off Brazil’s tie with Norway, giving the Brazilians a 1-0 lead.

World No. 166 Felipe Meligeni Rodriguez Alves will try to extend Brazil’s lead against World No. 343 Viktor Durasovic in the No. 2 men’s singles match later on Saturday.

Haddad Maia has enjoyed a dominant start to her season, having lost just two games to Martina Trevisan of Italy on Day 1.

“I entered the court trying to improve my game, to do better things than I couldn’t do two days before,” Haddad Maia said. “I was trying to be as aggressive as I could. I was happy that I was patient and giving myself chances one more time, even if I was missing. I was happy with the way I was thinking in this match.”

Read Feature: Team Brazil Pays Tribute To Pele

The most improved player of 2022, the 26-year-old out-matched her 319th-ranked opponent with a suffocating display from the baseline. The 23-year-old from Norway was making her Hologic WTA Tour debut, having never faced a player ranked inside the Top 90 before today.

On a rock-solid serving day, Haddad Maia did not face a break point while generating 11 chances of her own, breaking three times. She lost just 12 points on her serve in the tidy 91-minute match.

Corentin Moutet ended his 2022 season in style.

Just two months after reaching the fourth round of the US Open for the first time, the 23-year-old Frenchman notched impressive three-set wins against Borna Coric and Cameron Norrie to reach the third round at November’s Rolex Paris Masters. That run propelled him to a career-high No. 51 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Now, the entertaining lefty joins TopCourt to demonstrate the sort of shots and technique that have enabled him to neutralize bigger hitters and turn a game of power into a game of chess. From his experiences leaving home as a young teen to chase his dream of becoming a pro, to questioning his desire to continue the pursuit, Moutet’s journey is a valuable lesson in perseverance.

Technique: Moutet teaches two of his most masterful shots — the backhand slice and the forehand lob. In his backhand slice class, Corentin teaches you how to keep the ball low and angling away from his opponent. In his forehand lob class, he shares how he disrupts taller opponents by changing the speed and rhythm of a point.

Drills: Moutet brings three of his favourite drills to his TopCourt class. The first focuses on neutralising a point, the second on dictating a point with your forehand, and the third on executing points at the net.

Follow Moutet’s Tutorials at TopCourt.com.

Day 3 of the United Cup features two of its biggest stars, 22-time Grand Slam singles champion Rafael Nadal and WTA No.1 Iga Swiatek and 

Both players are coming off memorable 2022 seasons, both on and off the court. And they will be challenged, they say, to move forward after those successes. Nadal — who won the Australian Open and Roland Garros this past year — and his wife, Maria, welcomed their first child, Rafael Nadal Perello, back in October.

Nadal, 36, now the all-time leader with 22 men’s major singles titles, took a break after losing to Frances Tiafoe in the fourth round of the US Open. He was asked about his new role of father.

“Well,” he said, smiling, “the first event I played as a father without the baby with me, I lost [Paris] first round. Second event, travelling with the baby, I was out of the [Nitto ATP Finals] group stage. At the end I won my last match, but I need to keep improving, no? Easy.”

More from the United Cup

Getting enough sleep hasn’t been a problem, he said.

“We have some help.” Nadal explained. “No problem at all. Just I need to organise a little bit my life, as everybody needs to do when you have a child in your life. I’m excited to play this competition for the first time. Then let’s see. Let’s try our best and let’s see how far we can go.”

Nadal plays the first match of Saturday’s second session at Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena against Cameron Norrie of Great Britain. They have a recent but extensive ATP Head2Head history, and it’s been all Rafa, 4-0. They played three times in 2021, twice at majors, and most recently at 2022 Acapulco, when Nadal won 6-4, 6-4.

Swiatek ascended to the top of the Hologic WTA Tour rankings on April 4. Thirty-nine weeks later, she’s still there.

“For sure when Ash [Barty] retired, I felt mixed emotions,” Swiatek said of the woman she replaced atop the rankings. “At first I felt like I wasn’t sure if this is kind of my place to be. Ash, she seemed like a huge role model for everybody in terms of her behavior on court but also off court. She really set the bar pretty high, so I need to show it to people but also show it to myself that I’m in the right place.

“Hopefully maybe this week we are going to be able to meet and I’m going to say it straight to her. But she really inspired me to work harder and her different game style made me realize that there is always room for improvement.”

Group Standings

Like Nadal, Swiatek leads off the late session at Brisbane’s Pat Rafter Arena against Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan. Swiatek won their only meeting last fall in straight sets in Ostrava. She is “super proud” of herself for the accomplishments of the past year — Swiatek won half of the Grand Slams and WTA 1000 events (six of 12) — but forgive her if she doesn’t want to look back every time she has a press conference.

“At the beginning of this year, I’m going to try to kind of cut off everything that happened last year and just focus on the future,” she said. “Because I feel like I can take a lot of experience from these tournaments last year, but I don’t want to really hold on to that too much, because I want to go forward and kind of focus on my next goals.”

A new team will open play in each of the six United Cup groups on Day 3, with one of the two other teams from each group getting two days’ rest. In addition to Poland and Spain, Saturday will see tournament debuts for Belgium, Germany, Norway and Croatia.

Joining Nadal in Sydney, Alexander Zverev will lead Team Germany against the Czech Republic as he plays his first tour-level match since suffering an ankle injury in the Roland Garros semi-finals. In Perth, Belgium faces Bulgaria before Croatia takes on Argentina. Brazil and Norway open play in Sydney, before Swiatek takes the court for Poland.

United Cup: Day 3 Order of play (local time)

Sydney, Ken Rosewall Arena

Germany vs. Czech Republic (Group C)
Alexander Zverev (GER) vs. Jiri Lehecka (CZE), 10 a.m.
Jule Niemeier (GER) vs. Marie Bouzkova, to follow

Spain vs. Great Britain (Group D)
Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. Cameron Norrie (GBR), 3:30 p.m.
Nuria Parrizas Diaz (ESP) vs. Katie Swan (GBR), to follow

Perth, RAC Arena

Belgium vs. Bulgaria (Group A)
Alison Van Uytvanck (BEL) vs. Isabella Shinikova (BUL), 10 a.m.
David Goffin (BEL) vs. Grigor Dimitrov (BUL), to follow

Croatia vs. Argentina (Group F)
Donna Vekic (CRO) vs. Maria Carle (ARG), 3:30 p.m.
Borna Coric (CRO) vs. Francisco Cerundolo (ARG), to follow

Brisbane, Pat Rafter Arena

Brazil vs. Norway (Group E)
Beatriz Haddad Maia (BRA) vs. Ulrikke Eikeri (NOR), 10 a.m.
Felipe Meligeni Alves (BRA) vs. Viktor Durasovic (NOR), to follow

Poland vs. Kazakhstan (Group B)
Iga Swiatek (POL) vs. Yulia Putintseva (KAZ), 3:30 p.m.
Daniel Michalski (POL) vs. Timofey Skatov (KAZ), to follow

Mastery of multitasking could hold the key for success at the inaugural United Cup.

Six of the 18 nations in the mixed-teams event are led by ‘playing captains’, including four in Perth. Team Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov is one of the stars trying to balance supporting their teammates with their own match preparation in the Western Australian capital.

“It’s a little different; I’m not gonna lie,” said eight-time ATP Tour champion Dimitrov. On Thursday he supported his teammate Isabella Shinikova courtside as she took on Team Greece’s Despina Papamichail, while simultaneously preparing for the following match on the RAC Arena schedule, his own singles clash against Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“I was in and out [of the team box],” said Dimitrov, who does have previous experience as a playing captain from the 2020 ATP Cup. “I had to eat some and rest some and tie my shoes and prepare. Usually, I have all that time to do things by myself for myself, and now it was in a completely different rhythm for me, which was okay. I mean, I did that in the ATP Cup.

“Obviously it takes a little bit more energy than usual, but I felt that I was managing it quite well, again, even with my match. So, it was a very close call. It’s something that just you have got to deal with, I guess.”

^{_{Team Belgium playing captain Kirsten Flipkens joined the rest of her team at Caversham Wildlife Park on Thursday.}}

Team Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens will also be juggling roles in Perth. The former WTA World No. 13 will captain from courtside but is a more-than-handy doubles option for her team, which kicks off its Group A campaign on Saturday against Dimitrov’s Team Bulgaria. Flipkens, who reached the US Open mixed doubles final in 2022 alongside another playing captain in Perth, Team France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin, is intrigued at the prospect of balancing the two roles.

“We will have to find out in the next few days,” she said when asked about her approach to the captaincy at her team’s pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday. “I just try to organise everything for the practices for the team, try to do as good as possible to schedule all the practices for now, and just take the responsibility.

“So far, so good, I guess. Right?” appealed first-time captain Flipkens jokingly to her team.

Yet even if Flipkens does feel pressure as a newcomer in the role, Dimitrov admits that his past ATP Cup experience does not necessarily make it easier.

“It’s tough to watch!” said the former No. 3 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. “I have always said that. I have been in multiple player boxes over the years and watching matches on the side. Always, when you care, whether you like it or not, you feel the heat.”

Yet Flipkens may have already had a positive impact on her team even before they play their first United Cup tie. Team Belgium star Elise Mertens, No. 29 in the WTA singles rankings and also a 16-time tour-level doubles champion, did not hesitate to point to Flipkens when asked about the secret behind Team Belgium’s volleying prowess.

“We have a good example!” joked Mertens. “The captain has good volleys!”