Player Features

Zizou Bergs: Admiring LeBron James, cooking Japanese food & giving back

Zizou Bergs is playing some of the best tennis of his career. The Belgian made his first ATP Tour final earlier this season in Auckland and is at a career-high No. 53 in the PIF ATP Rankings.

Off the court, the 25-year-old is one of the most interesting players on the circuit. ATPTour.com caught up with Bergs at the BNP Paribas Open to learn more about his interests, surprising culinary specialty, charity work and more.

If you can have dinner with anybody in the world who would they be and why?
Let's say LeBron James. I [admire] his whole career. I want to know everything that he does, and his preparations, and his trainings and all that, his mindset. Too interesting.

Have you been a basketball fan for a while?
Yeah, I played basketball myself for a year or two, and then I played handball, but I followed the NBA for a bit. Not too intense, but for a long time.

So if you could be anybody else for a day, who would it be?
Maybe I would be more like a music artist, especially with the guitars and stuff, or DJs playing in those amazing crowds, like Fred Again or Peggy Gou. It must be insane. Having this adrenaline and this excitement must be unreal.

If you could visit any one place in the world, where would you go?
I'm really excited to go back to Tokyo and Japan. Explore, see more of the culture, but also the nourriture, the food and stuff.

What's your favourite Japanese food?
It's the Katsu Curry. The Katsu, I'm a big fan of the of the Chicken Katsu.

What's your favourite food in general?
The frituur. That's like a snack bar in Belgium, and it's unreal. It's mainly like french fries, but they have so many different types that nobody have heard of. So that's definitely my favourite place to go to. It's so typical of Belgium, it's unreal.

Do you cook a little bit?
I do. I almost only cook Japanese food because of my trips to Japan for the Challengers, and then I came back, and I just moved on my own in Antwerp, and since then I only cook Japanese food, or my breakfast. Breakfast is not Japanese. Mostly eggs. I love going to the bakery. It's also a real Belgian thing, and it's like a one-minute walk to the best bakery in town. And those are my favourite things on a Sunday.

What's your perfect off day without tennis?
Oh, man, now you say it I really miss family. So going to my family, having some quality time with my dog, girlfriend, home, Antwerp, all of that stuff, especially being around friends. I have many interests, but being around friends, family and stuff is still the best.

You're very forward thinking, you've been in our ATP Player Mentoring Programme. Why is it so important to you to pay attention to more than just tennis?
I'm someone who's naturally very eager to learn new things, and I do think it's important for myself to develop on the tennis court, but also off the tennis court. And having this chance to be in the mentoring program, in the business program, is something that is a unique opportunity, because of our network, because of the ATP.

It's a kind of culture with my dad, my granddad. It's always about business and sports, especially tennis. So would be stupid not to do it.

What do you do in the charity world to support others?
For a lot of years, I have this project with Burundi, where I give every year at least one time clothes, equipment, all of that stuff that we sent to Burundi because when I was a junior, I played there. I was the age of 15. If you come to Africa for the first time and you see how they live and how grateful they are for small things, that's something that stuck around. And since then, we definitely send a lot of that stuff there.

It's Jean-Francois Lenvain, who has his own organisation a bit. And now, especially with the Carbon Tracker that we won helped in there. And also when we can, we try to be present at those events. And those events are actually made for all around, whatever your background is, or whatever handicap you have, what's going on, to really get involved into sports, and that's where we give a lot of support.

Why is giving back important to you?
That's a little bit how I think it's important to give and take. That's a little bit the quote I try to live with, because I got a lot myself from Belgium, especially the Flemish Federation. They supported me a lot.

At a certain point it's up to you when you have the chance to give back, even though it can be with Davis Cup or here in the ATP to make the Belgian people proud. But it can be also with real things, giving back in that sense, and that's also with the Carbon Tracker why I chose also to give back to the Federation in the sense of they have their project to support people who have less resources and that are not even able to play tennis, to make sure that they build tennis grounds in the country, but also providing them easier interaction to make sure they start with tennis.