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As Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard stepped to the baseline for the start of his contest against Frances Tiafoe in the sleepy suburbs of Brisbane on Thursday afternoon, his very first shot of the match drew dramatic, startled gasps from the full Pat Rafter Arena crowd. Although Mpetshi Perricard usually does not pay attention to serve speeds in the blazing heat of battle, the loud commotion after his thunderous ace led him to steal a glance at the speed clock. The screen read: 232kmh (144mph).
By the end of the opening game, the Frenchman had served four aces off his first five serves, finishing with a cool 227kmh (141mph) second serve ace. He would close out a brilliant straight-sets win over Tiafoe with 20 aces. For his captivated audience, it was the perfect introduction to what has quickly become the most destructive weapon in professional tennis.
A year ago, only those monitoring the ATP Challenger tour were fully aware of Mpetshi Perricard’s potential. The hype was minimal. Having started 2024 ranked outside of the top 100, however, the 21-year-old has flitted up the rankings with ease, breaking through as a wildcard to win his first ATP title in his hometown, Lyon, blazing into the fourth round of Wimbledon as a lucky loser and then ending the year with his first ATP 500 title in Basel. His continued emergence has been one of the most significant developments in the first week of the new year. It is clear that absolutely nobody in the world wants to see him in their draw.
For Mpetshi Perricard, everything starts with that serve. Although his strong 6ft 8in frame provides it with a great platform, his smooth, efficient and dynamic service motion motion is responsible for such a precise and consistent stroke. Even under massive pressure in the decisive moments, he will hit his spots. On Friday against Jakub Mensik, his first serve speed averaged an outlandish 136mph. Last year, Mpetshi Perricard averaged 19 aces per match, by far the highest number on tour. His opponents are so often reduced to guessing the direction of his serve while praying that they somehow manage to get a racket on the ball.
During his youth, Mpetshi Perricard’s serve was far from his priority. He was so skinny that he did not have sufficient dynamic power in his legs to generate enough pace and so the focus was on adding other dimensions to his game. “[Then] some of my coaches did some technical sessions on my serve,” he says. “[From] 15, 16 years old, I did a lot of serving, a lot of serves from baskets during training. We knew that it was going to be a good weapon in the future, [so] we tried to add some new things, to get some advice from people who can [help] the technique. Now I think it’s working.”
What really separates Mpetshi Perricard from the many great servers before him is what happens after he misses his first serve. Even many of the big servers in the past have had to compromise with speed or spin on their second serve to ensure that consistency is prioritised. Against Mensik however, his average second serve speed was an outlandish 128mph, just 8mph lower than his first serve. His second serve is faster than the vast majority of first serves on the tour and despite those ballistic speeds – despite essentially playing tennis with two first serves – he missed an average of 5.5 second serves per match last year. This year will mark his first full season on the ATP Tour and he will surely only continue to improve.
“It is brand new,” says Mpetshi Perricard of his massive second serve. “I did a lot of work on that during 2023 with my current coach. It was a goal for me to be better on the second serve because I was hitting the ball at 170kmh (106mph), but I wasn’t missing at all. He’d say: ‘Can you push it a bit more? 10 kilometres? 15? 20? Push to see your limit.’
“Now I think sometimes my limit is 200kmh (124mph), sometimes it is 190kmh (118mph). It [depends] how I am feeling on the court. But yeah, I don’t know, in two, three years I can be 220kmh (138mph) or this can be my maximum. I don’t know. We will see. I think it’s still a shot to improve.”
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The recent history of men’s tennis has been filled with giant human beings armed with massive serves. In response to their presence, a new pejorative phrase entered the tennis lexicon in the early 2010s: the ‘serve bot’. Not everyone is enamoured with watching players ace their way through matches.
This group of extraordinary servers has actually left a significant impact on professional tennis. John Isner’s unforgettable war with Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010, which finished 70-68 in the fifth set after over 11 hours, and then Kevin Anderson’s Wimbledon semi-final win over Isner in 2018, which ended 26-24 in the fifth set after six and a half hours, played a significant role in the grand slam tournaments opting to shorten their formats.
In recent years, though, the presence of massive servers on tour began to fade. Isner, Ivo Karlovic and Anderson have all retired, while Nick Kyrgios and Reilly Opelka suffered lengthy injuries. Mpetshi Perricard, though, seems to have sparked a serving renaissance. In the same week that Kyrgios returned from essentially a two year layoff, Opelka continued his own comeback from a two-year absence by toppling Novak Djokovic in straight sets to secure the biggest win of his career. On Saturday, Mpetshi Perricard and Opelka will face off for a place in the Brisbane final. There will be many aces.
