A super-size danger can deconstruct the Oz Open draw—and continue his rise toward the Top 10.
The most dangerous dark horse in the Australian Open field is a man who has yet to score a single win at the Melbourne major or the US Open, says Hall of Famer John McEnroe.
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The retractable roof over Rod Laver Arena is merely a launching pad for 6’8” tower of power Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, who will be seeded at a major for the first time in Melbourne.
Former world No. 1 McEnroe says the 21-year-old Mpetshi Perricard can ride his rocket serve and menacing ground strokes to do “serious damage” in Slams—and predicts if the Frenchman stays healthy he will be a Top 10 force.
In a Zoom call with the media to promote ESPN’s Australian Open coverage, ESPN lead analyst McEnroe said “the sky’s the limit” for Mpetshi Perricard.
Exclusive ESPN Australian Open coverage kicks off in the U.S. on Saturday, January 11th, with the First Round streaming live at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+ and presented at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN2, two hours earlier than in 2024.
“Obviously this guy is a guy that's got potential to do a serious amount of damage,” McEnroe said of the 21-year-old Frenchman. “I'm not quite sure how resilient his body is. It looks to be pretty resilient for a guy of that height.
"He's a big strong guy. In a way it would be surprising if he's not at least a top-10 player if he stays healthy and potentially go deep in majors
“He's learning on the fly a little bit, but you can see these guys that have had to play him; he beat Korda, I think, at Wimbledon It's a nightmare to play this guy.”
ESPN analyst and coach Rennae Stubbs, who is in Australia, reports players say the Melbourne courts are playing relatively quickly this month. If that’s the case, it could help massive serves like Mpetshi Perricard, Reilly Opelka, Nicolas Jarry and Nick Kyrgios, though his status is uncertain as he's dealing with an abdominal strain.
In fact, McEnroe believes court conditions—and serving prowess of threats like Mpetshi Perricard—make it highly unlikely world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and reigning Roland Garros and Wimbledon winner Carlos Alcaraz will split the Slam spoils in 2025 as they did last year.
“This is part of why I believe Alcaraz and Sinner are going to have a tough time getting close to even 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, big guys with huge serves,” McEnroe told the media. “Rennae [Stubbs] just mentioned, and I was not aware, that this court sometimes plays pretty quick. If it plays quick, try returning [Mpetshi Perricard's] serve.
“I think you saw Kyrgios play him and it was three tiebreaks. So Kyrgios had one of the biggest serves in history, and he would go for a lot on the second serve. So this is almost like another step past Nick, which is pretty hard to believe. The sky's the limit in a way for him.”
The explosive Frenchman fired laser beam first and second serves slamming 36 aces winning a 7-6, 6-7, 7-6 Brisbane duel vs. Kyrgios earlier this month.
Afterward, the 2022 Wimbledon finalist Kyrgios said the biggest serve "by far" he's ever seen belongs to Mpetshi Perricard.
"Props to him. He's a hell of a player," Kyrgios said of the French power player. "I have played, you know, Karlovic, Isner, Raonic, all the big servers, and he's got the biggest serve by far. Yeah, that was interesting. And it sucked."
McEnroe’s ESPN colleague, Rennae Stubbs, said it remains to be seen if Mpetshi Perricard, who reached the Wimbledon round of 16 last July falling to eventual-semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti, can improve the consistency of groundstrokes and quality of the rest of his game necessary to challenge the elite.
“It's just improving the groundstrokes. It's being more and more consistent with that part of his game, his movement around the court,” Stubbs told the media. “Mentally can he go back-to-back-to-back-to-back matches. And you're going to find -- look, he lost in straight sets to Reilly Opelka, interestingly enough, also a massive server. This was just last week.
“So as John said, he's 30 in the world now. He's going to be ranked. These guys aren't going to play him until the third round. Usually by that time they've got their eye in, too, and they're just hoping he can get his serve back on the court and hope that the rest of their game is better than him.”
Still, while Mpetshi Perricard has proven he can light it up in best-of-three-sets, sustaining imposing serving over the course of seven best-of-five-set matches required to win a Grand Slam is an entirely different demanding task, Stubbs said.
“Is he going to win a Slam? I don't know. You've got to beat these guys over five sets,” Stubbs said. “It's not easy to do. He's going to win a lot of matches on the tour just based on the fact that it's best of three, and if he gets one break, it's going to be really hard to break this guy.
“But it's all a matter of time. We've had some really big servers through the years and they've done very, very well. It's how well can they do, can they win a Slam. It's not that easy to do over five sets. But we'll see.”