Interactive Forum September 2024: Giovanni Mpetshi Perricord Serve

[johnyandell]

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricord Serve

No one had heard of him when he crashed on the scene at Wimbledon. Giovanni Mpetshi Perricord. 6’8”, French, with a one handed backhand and 140mph serve. Here’s a first look at that service motion!

[seano]

As always John, you are right on top of the latest phenoms. Beautiful quality videos.

[johnyandell]

It's a team effort! So what does everyone see??

[stroke]

It looks a lot like Kyrgios, a staggered motion, with the step up with the right foot going just in front of the front foot, and the front hip really bowed far into the court. His toss is a bit higher than Nick's maybe, it seems to drop a bit more before contact than Nick. I would say a beautiful, very repeatable motion.

[jimlosaltos]

I looked up Gio's serve rating and after a great debut in the grass season, he's disappeared.

So, I pulled the ATP rating on grass, to show what he was doing then. This is over 52 weeks. From memory around Wimby he was number one.

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[hybridfh]

Interesting that he seems to have somewhat incomplete ISR/pronation based on the racket face orientation after contact. Makes me feel better about my own difficulties trying to consistently achieve that position. I wonder if he's in a conti grip shifted a bit towards a backhand grip, since that can affect how far the racket face turns out to the right fence after impact? With the index knuckle more centrally on bevel 2 (as opposed to between 1 and 2), it's easier to get that ending position with the racket face parallel to the side fence.

[johnyandell]

Good questions. We have more footage that might show this. What I thought was interesting ws the mph without! I doubt he is seeking input on his serve at this point...

[jimlosaltos]

Some items that I posted elsewhere in the forum but might be worth cross posting here.

1 of 3 Stats from his early, hot run (note his serve has ebbed in limited play since).

Yes, 140 MPH is impressive but I'm more impressed by his 134 mph AVERAGE first serve and 128 MPH Average 2nd Serve.
Plus, the accuracy can be amazing. In the Musetti final (vid link below) Gio hit 4 consecutive aces that each either hit or almost hit the lines.

Note: He has a 15 yo sister who plays tennis. ITF doesn't show her height

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2 of 3 A side view, iPhone sequence from Craig O'Shannessy

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3 of 3 Video of Gio's final vs Lorenzo Musetti in Stuttgart on grass, I believe

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[stroke]

Of all those stats, the 128 average mph 2nd serve really jumps out.

[jimlosaltos]

Brand new stats from ATP's Tennis Insights has Gio the best rated server for the year.

I don't know what the minimum number of matches is, since O'Pelka doesn't seem to have played many. Ditto Raonic.


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[chux10sed]

Beautiful. With a 1H BH, are his coaches training him to play serve-and-volley on all surfaces other than clay? Or is he doing that already?

[johnyandell]

These are good questions--I wonder also but no inside info...