G’day From Wimbledon 🍓
The week before Wimbledon, I went to Roehampton to watch the qualifying tournament.
I stumbled upon a match in which the No. 1 seed in qualifying, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, played Ugo Blanchet. Both players are from France.
Ugo looked like a solid player. At 5’9″ (175 cm) and 149 lbs (68 kg), you could quickly tell he would be relying on his speed around the court to advance to the Wimbledon main draw.
And then I looked down the other end.
Standing 6’8″ (203 cm) and 216 lbs (98 kg) stood Giovanni. Man mountain. My jaw hit the floor. He looked like no tennis player I had ever seen before. He was big, but he was fast. The picture below is from that match.
Keep in mind that Giovanni is just 20 years old.
Wimbledon Qualifying 2024 Round 1: Mpetshi Perricard def. Blanchet 6-2, 7-5
Here’s a breakdown of what I saw in Giovanni’s three Wimbledon qualifying matches and his stunning 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 7-6(6), 6-7(4), 6-3 victory over number 20 seed, Sebastian Korda, in the first round yesterday.
I rank six parts of his game out of 10, with zero being bad and 10 being outstanding.
IMPROVE YOUR SERVE STRATEGY
Webinar 3: Serve Strategy & Patterns
Webinar 11: Break Points & Tie Breaks
Webinar 21: Serve & Volley / Return & Volley
Webinar 46: 8 Ways To Force An Error
SERVE = 11/10 (yes, that’s correct)
His motion is sublime. It’s clean and incredibly powerful (see pics below).
- Giovanni starts in a nice, relaxed stance with his arms hanging low. That allows his wrist, elbow, and shoulder to be fully relaxed and ready to explode at the start of the motion. There is nothing unnecessary or unusual at the beginning of the motion.
- The tossing arm leads the start of the service motion, which is ideal. As you can see from the pictures below, the racket falls naturally, and the tossing arm leads the motion.
- Giovanni has a strong left arm straight up into the sky to help with an extremely consistent toss.
- Giovanni’s wrist is quite bent in the third and fourth frames below. He is “pre-loading” his wrist to gain more firepower at the point of contact.
- For a very tall player, his toss is a “low” toss, meaning he hits it very close to the highest point of the toss. Many players toss high, and the ball drops considerably before the point of contact. Not this guy. He tosses it barely above the point of contact and hits it soon after. This helps a lot with the consistency of toss and contact point. So little can go wrong.
- He stays tall after crushing the serve. You see in the last frame below that his left leg is bent, but his upper body is still straighter (taller) than most players in this position.
His serve is from another galaxy – probably Andromeda.
It’s so clean, efficient, repeatable, and powerful—the kind of serve that breaks ribs on the other side of the net.
FOREHAND = 7/10
Giovanni gets massive spin on his forehand and loves to rip it cross court.
The good part is that he can really make the ball dip, allowing for sharp angles. The rotation reminds you of Rafael Nadal. The problem is that he too often “only” gets up the back of the ball and does not get through it enough. This results in too many forehands ending up in the net, with massive spin pulling the ball down and not enough “through” to get the ball over the net.
His forehand needs to mature. It needs to have the same simple qualities as his serve: fewer errors and more depth.
BACKHAND = 7/10
His “topspin” backhand is hit relatively flat, and the overall stroke is about as short as a”drive” backhand can be. That serves him well when he is on defense and needs to get a little bigger when he is not rushed and wants to hit rally balls deep in the court.
Giovanni’s slice backhand is definitely above average. He gets a ton of backspin on the ball and hits it like a frozen rope. It’s not a floating slice. It’s a knifing slice and can immediately extract errors
MENTAL/EMOTIONAL GAME = 10/10
I can only judge him from the three matches I saw him play at Roehampton and round one at Wimbledon against Sebastian Korda. His strength is that his facial expressions rarely change. His face is relaxed, calm, and engaged. He does not drop his shoulders or look at his coach’s box for answers when he loses the point. He is unusually calm on the court, and that has served him well in the big moments.
His attitude was exemplary.
MOVEMENT = 8/10
Giovanni is 6’8″ and moves like a gazelle. You look at his size and do not expect him to be so quick off the mark or so balanced when hitting. He does a great job getting his big frame around the court and into position to crush the ball. He will run you over.
NET GAME = 8/10
There is a genuine willingness to come forward to the net to finish points. He likes to serve and volley. He can come in behind his forehand or backhand. He is a nightmare for opponents when they drop the ball short. His volleys are short and precise.
SUMMARY
He will be a Top 10 player – no doubt in my mind.
His serve will prove unstoppable. It will demoralize opponents, as it did against Korda. His forehand and backhand will continue to improve. Opponents will continue to be steamrolled. I am so excited to see him mature as a player and take the racket out of opponents’ hands.
He hit 51 aces, including SEVEN on second serves against Korda in round one. Apart from the Isner/Mahut match at Wimbledon, the 51 aces equal the eighth-highest total in Wimbledon’s history. After just one Wimbledon match, he is already pushing the boundaries.
Giovanni is the real deal and will be a delight to follow over the next decade. He is going to win some really big matches on the biggest stage in our sport, and this year at Wimbledon may be just the start.
The “Andromeda Galaxy” has arrived.