Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard impacts. The 21-year-old, 2.03 meter French tennis player is a serving machine. This Sunday, in ATP 500 Baselwon the second title of his short and explosive career without giving up serve throughout the week (there were 60 service turns in total) and with a final record of 109 aces. In the Swiss city where Roger Federer was born, The player from Lyon defeated the American in the final Ben Shelton (23rd) by 6-4 and 7-6 (7-4), after 1h26m.
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If French school tennis was eagerly looking for a racket for the replacement of figures (in recent times Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon said goodbye; Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils will soon do so), Mpetshi Perricard arrived on time. Focused, without losing his concentrated expression and with an overwhelming coldness, he embodies a lightning appearance: last January he was 205th in the ranking, but from this Monday he will be 31st in the world.
His greatest power is in the serve: he executes it at a furious speed. Shelton suffered services at 235 km/h, 240 km/h, 242 km/h. And not only were the Frenchman’s first serves at that speed: he did not save strength in the second either. All that was left for Shelton was to try to guess the direction of the serve and block. In the first set, he even took a hit on his right hand that left him hurting.
The imposing saque of Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard – Credits: @Georgios Kefalas
“I almost killed myself trying to return your services. You’ve made a lot of progress in many other areas of your game. You are a great talent. You went from 200th to 30th in the world in ten months, you can be very proud of that,” said Shelton, with a friendly grin, during the award ceremony.
Surprising eighth-finalist in the last Wimbledon tournament, this week in Switzerland the bomber Mpetshi Perricard managed to surpass a record that belonged to John Isner. The Frenchman passed 500 aces in 29 matches this season; The American server had achieved it in 31 matches.
Another notable aspect of Mpetshi Perricard is that he not only has a furious serve. Unlike another imposing server, such as the Croatian Ivo Karlovic, the Frenchman has valuable resources from the back of the court, both forehand and backhand (he throws it with one hand, a curiosity these days). “My goal this year was to win an ATP 250 or a 500, but achieving both is incredible,” he said after receiving the traditional golden trophy that Federer won ten times (the last in 2019).
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard with the Swiss Indoors ATP 500 champion trophy – Credits: @FABRICE COFFRINI
The Frenchman, who had only played two indoor ATP tournaments in his career, found in the conditions of Basel an ideal terrain to unleash his potential. “On this surface my serve can be a great weapon. But I try to be aggressive from the baseline to put my rivals under pressure,” explained Mpetshi Perricard, the first French champion in Basel since Yannick Noah (1982 and 1987). In addition, he became the first Basel champion ranked outside the top 20 since the American Jim Courier did so in 1989, when he was 35th.
With the progress achieved by his work in Basel, Mpetshi Perricard becomes the third racket in France, only behind No. 20 Arthur Fils and No. 18 Ugo Humbert.
