If there’s one male player, nobody wants to see when the Australian Open draw comes out on Thursday, it’s 6-foot-8 Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

The 21-year-old cranked out a 151-mph serve last year and just last week banged out 20 aces in a straight-sets win over former U.S. Open semifinalist Frances Tiafoe at the 2025 Brisbane International. Perricard is now 6-1 against the Top 20 and is capable of banging out 30-40 aces in a given five-set match.

“All the years in tennis, through the generations, there’d be a couple guys in the draw that you’d be like, ‘I hope that guy’s not near me,’” ESPN analyst John McEnroe said Tuesday on a conference call ahead of the start of the Australian Open Jan. 11.

“And he would be at the top of the list of that. He’d be that guy you don’t want to play, especially early, like a top guy.”

Perricard is ranked No. 30 in the world and will be seeded in Melbourne. A top-8 seed like a Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic wouldn’t see him until the third round.

“Fortunately for the top players, he’s already seeded,” McEnroe said, “so that eases some of the stress. But obviously, this guy’s a guy that’s got potential to do a serious amount of damage. I’m not quite sure how resilient his body is. It looks to be pretty resilient for a guy at that height. He’s a big, strong guy.”

Perricard beat huge-serving Nick Kyrgios in the first round in Brisbane, 7-6(2) 6-7(4) 7-6(3).

“Kyrgios has got one of the biggest serves in history, and [Perricard] would go for a lot on the second serve,” McEnroe said. “So this is almost like another step past Nick which, you know, is pretty hard to believe.

“He has the ability to just take the racquet out of your hand,” ESPN analyst Brad Gilbert told ATPTour.com in Brisbane. “It can be one of those mental matches where you don’t get a look but you have to take care of your serve.”

“He’s a tricky guy to play and if he can improve, it’s all about his return,” Gilbert added. “The serve is big and the second serve is ridiculous, but can he hold the ridiculous rate that he does against all players and then do it against a [Jannik] Sinner or [Carlos] Alcaraz? If he can go from like 10 per cent breaking to 15, 17 per cent, and maintain where he is at holding serve, then he is a Top 5 player for sure.”

Last year at Wimbledon, Perricard blasted 51 aces to eliminate Sebastian Korda 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 7-6(6), 6-7(4), 6-3 in three hours and 21 minutes

McEnroe expects big things for Perricard going forward.

“It’d be surprising if he’s not at least a top 10 player, if he stays healthy and potentially go deep in majors,” he said. “He’s learning on the fly a little bit, but you can see these guys that have had to play them….I mean, it’s a total nightmare to play this guy.”

McEnroe added that the depth of the men’s game with players like Perricard could ultimately cut down on the total number of majors that Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner win. He says it will be even harder for them to get to the 20+ level that Roger Federer (20), Rafael Nadal (22) and Novak Djokovic (24) have accomplished.

“So this is part of why I believe Alcaraz and Sinner are going to have a tough time, you know, getting even close to the level in terms of winning Slams that you’ve seen from these three other guys, because you’re going to deal with more guys like this,” he said.

“You know, big guys [with] huge serves.”

Renee Stubbs said on the ESPN call that the court is playing especially quick, which would favor big servers like Perricard and world No. 1 Sinner.

“If it plays quick. I mean, try returning his serve,” McEnroe said of Perricard. “So the sky’s the limit in a way, for him.”

Read the full article here

Share.
Leave A Reply

Exit mobile version