Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard’s serve is the fastest on tour.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
It was the wince felt across the globe.
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard’s 230km/h thunderbolt serve crashed through Ben Shelton’s defences and straight into his right hand, prompting the American to instantly discard his racquet and clutch at his wounded paw.
Speaking after the six-foot-eight Frenchman terrorised him in the Swiss Indoors final in Basel in October, Shelton offered a brutally honest insight into what it is like to face the most deadly serve on tour.
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard hits Ben Shelton with a powerful serve.Credit: Tennis TV
“I almost killed myself trying to return your serve,” Shelton said. “So many other parts of your game have improved so much, and you’re such a great young talent and so good for the sport.”
Boasting height rarely seen on the tennis circuit and with tree trunks for legs, Mpetshi Perricard is already a major problem at 21 years old. In fact, another American, all-time aces leader John Isner, believes the emerging phenom will be a “nightmare” in the years ahead.
Mpetshi Perricard, who is considered tennis’ answer to NBA star and countryman Victor Wembanyama, did not drop a single service game in that Basel title run, but that was not even his most impressive feat that week.
He averaged a ridiculous 209.2km/h on his 126 second serves across the tournament, the culmination of his coach Emmanuel Planque’s vision entering the 2023 season.
“With the motion I have, with my height and all this stuff, I can hit hard, and I still have a good angle to drop the ball inside the box,” Mpetshi Perricard told The Age.
“It was one of the plans for 2023 with my coach to be better with the second serve … he wanted me to push a little more to see where my limit was.
“I did a lot of [practice with tennis balls in the] basket on the second serve – and my coach said, ‘You can be the first guy with two [first] serves, and be able to have a good accuracy with that’.”
The self-professed challenge for Mpetshi Perricard is replicating that serving performance in outside environments, but he is well on the way, even if it means he commits more double faults than most players.
He won the ATP Tour’s most improved player award last year after climbing 175 ranking spots to No.31 and claiming two titles. After falling short of qualifying at the 2024 Australian Open, Mpetshi Perricard is the 30th seed this time around – and starts against fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils on court three on Tuesday.
Mpetshi Perricard graduated mid-year from star junior and curiosity to bona fide threat during his breakout run to Wimbledon’s last 16, after making the draw as a lucky loser.
Ahead of Mpetshi Perricard’s first-round match against Seb Korda in London, Australian coach and analyst Craig O’Shannessy tipped him as a future top-10 star, saying he had “one of the best serves our sport has ever seen”.
Korda was dumbfounded afterwards: “There wasn’t much to do – just guess where the ball was going.”
The numbers paint a clear picture of why Mpetshi Perricard is receiving so many plaudits.
He is the sole men’s player to have a serve rating above 300 across the past year under the ATP Tour formula, which takes into account first-serve percentage (64.9 per cent), points won on first (80.1) and second serve (53.3), service games won (89.9), aces (19.3) and double faults (5.3).
Alex Zverev is the second-ranked server on tour, while Hubert Hurkacz averaged the next-most aces per match in that period, but it was almost six fewer than Mpetshi Perricard.
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios had not played for 18 months before facing Mpetshi Perricard in Brisbane two weeks ago, but had read the scouting report on the Frenchman, saying he had “arguably the biggest serve on tour”.
Kyrgios lost a tight three-setter across three tiebreaks to Mpetshi Perricard, and remained just as complimentary after returning the cannonballs for himself.
Comparing Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard’s serve to that of Alexander Zverev.Credit: Tennis TV
“I already knew that he liked to hit two first serves, but props to him – he’s found what works for his game style, and he’s committed to that,” Kyrgios said.
“He’s going to do some damage, for sure [and] he’s going to have a long career. He’s got an easy action on his serve. There were no real dips in speed, or anything like that.”
Funnily enough, Mpetshi Perricard’s tremendous height was a detriment to his serving in his early days learning the game. Like a gangly young basketballer trying to figure out how to use his assets, Mpetshi Perricard had to do the same with his serve.
“When I started, my technique was very bad,” he told this masthead.
“My first coach did a lot of good stuff with me. We spent a lot of hours on the court with the basket, trying to [produce] the best movement about myself, about my forehand, serve, everything. We did some stuff with video, and the plan was to serve good for a long time, and not have any surgery or injury.”
Mpetshi Perricard is aware of the Wembanyama comparisons.
Wembanyama is a 221cm athletic freak with a 240cm wingspan, so he is about 18 centimetres taller than his tennis-playing countryman. But it is how they are changing their respective sports that is every bit as relevant as their height.
“I have seen stuff about me like, ‘It’s not tennis’, ‘They should ban this’, or ‘Without a serve he’s not good’, and I laugh when I watch that, but it’s part of the game,” Mpetshi Perricard said.
“I mean, I’m different, and ‘Wemby’ is different. Wemby will not have the skills of Stephen Curry or Kyrie Irving, and it’s the same for me – I will not have the same skills as Novak or Alcaraz or Sinner.”
Watch all the Australian Open action live on Nine, 9Now and Stan.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
