Occasionally in sport you see something so stupendous you want to simultaneously gasp, laugh, and shake your head. Before asking: \u201cDid I really just see that?\u201d<\/p>\n
And so to No 1 Court, where the 6ft 8in Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard sent down a 153mph thunderbolt to record the fastest serve in Wimbledon\u2019s 145-year history \u2013 beating Taylor Dent\u2019s record by 5mph.<\/p>\n
For good measure, he also powered in a 146mph second serve before predicting it was possible for someone like him to serve far, far quicker in the future. \u201cThe players are stronger,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have bigger shoulders, so I don\u2019t know \u2013 260 or 270km\/h (161-167mph) is maybe the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately it was all to no avail as the 21-year-old lost an epic to the fifth seed, Taylor Fritz, 6-7 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-4. But Mpetshi Perricard\u2019s serve provoked similar levels of awe to watching Mike Tyson\u2019s volcanic uppercuts, Jonah Lomu running over opponents and Usain Bolt obliterating the 100m world record while slowing down. It really was that special.<\/p>\n
The irony is that while Mpetshi Perricard hit 37 aces in the match, his record-breaking 153mph serve was actually returned and he lost the point. \u201cI didn\u2019t check the speed, to be honest,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cIt comes naturally. But we don\u2019t train this part of my game a lot. It\u2019s about 90% on the baseline, 10% on the serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
The high-quality match resumed at two sets all, having been suspended 45 minutes before the 11pm curfew. Fritz had wanted to play on, feeling that he had the momentum. But the 17-hour break did nothing to disturb the familiar pattern with both players continuing to dominate serve in the fifth set. The American was no slouch in that regard, sending down 29 aces in total and denying his opponent a single break point.<\/p>\n
It was a match of impossibly fine margins. Yet at 5-4 down in the fifth set, Mpetshi Perricard\u2019s serve suddenly let him down. He started with a double fault, before failing to find a first serve in the next three points. Fritz scented blood. And when Mpetshi Perricard sent a forehand long \u2013 one of 63 unforced errors across the match \u2013 it was over.<\/p>\n
Yet afterwards the Lyon-born youngster promised he would stick with his no compromises approach. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you saw the match, but every time there is a rally and it\u2019s over five shots, I\u2019m not the best one,\u201d he said, smiling. \u201cI think it\u2019s better for me to play under three or four shots. So that\u2019s why I\u2019m going full-out sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also believes he can develop a game that will one day enable him to win Wimbledon. \u201cI think it\u2019s a dream of all the other players in the draw to win this grand slam, so yeah,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
Fritz, meanwhile, was delighted to get through to the second round, where he will face the dangerous Canadian Gabriel Diallo. But when asked what it was like to survive facing the biggest server in tennis, he was surprisingly sanguine. \u201cI don\u2019t really mind it because it actually gives me absolutely zero time to think,\u201d he said. \u201cNormally when I start thinking, that\u2019s when I mess things up. I\u2019d much rather deal with the speed than the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
And before he left, Fritz even had some words of advice for his opponent. \u201cIf he did 153mph, he could potentially do close to 160 in the right conditions,\u201d he said. \u201cThe question I have is: Why? There\u2019s no point. It\u2019s much better to hit 140 to a spot than just hit the ball and serve as hard as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mpetshi Perricard might not \u00adnecessarily agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Occasionally in sport you see something so stupendous you want to simultaneously gasp, laugh, and shake your head.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-230244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114779970908832366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}