Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard went from outside the Top 200 to two ATP Tour titles in a single season. In 2024 the Frenchman won his hometown event in Lyon as a wild card, reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a lucky loser after hitting 51 aces in his first main-draw match at a major, and won the Swiss Indoors in Basel without losing his serve all week. In 2025 he had the fastest average first serve and the fastest average second serve on the ATP Tour. This week he is back in Basel, ranked No. 148, and opens against his oldest friend on tour, Arthur Fils.
From Lyon to Poitiers
Mpetshi Perricard was born in Lyon and is right-handed. His father, Guylain Mpetshi, played football and his sister Ariane played basketball; his mother, Sylvie Perricard, is the person he names as his hero. He left home at 12 to train with the French Tennis Federation in Poitiers, and he credits three coaches with his development: Cyril Genevois, Jean-Baptiste Dupuy and Emmanuel Planque.
He reached No. 4 in the junior rankings in 2021. At Roland Garros that year he lost to Fils in the boys’ singles semifinals and won the boys’ doubles title with him. The two have known each other since they were nine. “That’s my brother,” Fils said this week.
The 2024 breakthrough
He started 2024 at No. 205 with two tour-level match wins to his name. In May, ranked No. 117 and playing on a wild card, he won the Open Parc in Lyon in only his fourth tour-level event, saving a match point in the final against Tomas Martin Etcheverry and winning 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7). “It means a lot,” he said. “A lot of dedication, a lot of hard training, a lot of questions about my game.” Fils had won the same title a year earlier.
At Wimbledon he lost in the final round of qualifying to Maxime Janvier despite hitting 44 aces, then went into the main draw as a lucky loser when Alejandro Davidovich Fokina withdrew. On Court 16, across two rain delays, he beat 20th seed Sebastian Korda 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6), 6-7 (4), 6-3 in three hours, 21 minutes. He saved all 11 break points he faced and hit 51 aces, the last of them on match point, becoming the seventh man to hit more than 50 in a match. “Fifty-one? Yeah, that’s a lot,” he said. He went on to the fourth round, the first lucky loser to get that far at Wimbledon since Dick Norman in 1995, and lost there to Lorenzo Musetti.
He arrived in Basel in October at No. 50, having lost eight of his previous nine matches. He held all 60 of his service games that week, beat Felix Auger-Aliassime and Holger Rune, and took the final from Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-6 (4) in 87 minutes with 22 aces. Shelton did not have a break point. Mpetshi Perricard was the lowest-ranked Basel champion since the event became a tour-level tournament in 1975. “My goal was to win a 250 or a 500,” he said, “but to win both is amazing.”
He also beat Frances Tiafoe at the Rolex Paris Masters and finished the year at No. 31, 175 places higher than he started it. Players voted him Most Improved Player at the 2024 ATP Awards, from a shortlist chosen by the International Tennis Writers’ Association. Along the way he won Challenger titles in Acapulco, Nottingham and Cuernavaca.
The serve
The serve is what sets him apart. He averaged 19 aces a match in 2024, double the rate of Alexander Zverev, then the world No. 2, and hit a 151 mph serve against Hugo Gaston in Lyon. In 2025 his average first serve was 134.4 mph (216.3 km/h) and his average second serve 117 mph, both the fastest on the tour. He rarely takes pace off the second ball. “It’s a real strategy,” he said before Wimbledon in 2025. “I’ve got a lot of control, and that allows me to put pressure on my opponents.”
Novak Djokovic felt it in the first round at Roland Garros this year. Mpetshi Perricard took the first set and saved nine break points in the second before Djokovic levelled on his tenth chance and won 5-7, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4. “In the first set, zero chance really on his serve,” Djokovic said. “He has one of the most tremendous serves in terms of precision and speed that I have ever faced in my career.”
Since 2024
The results have not kept pace with the serve. He reached a career-high No. 29 in February 2025 but finished that season 19-26 at tour level, with a Challenger title in Bordeaux. In February 2026, ranked No. 56, he split from Planque, thanking him for “all your hard work and total commitment.” He has not won a tour-level match since June and came through qualifying to reach the Basel main draw this week.
Fils, who talks to him often by phone, has not lost faith. “When he’s fit, he will be one of the best players in the world, I think,” he said.
Grand Slam best results
- Australian Open: first round (2025, 2026)
- Roland Garros: second round (2025)
- Wimbledon: fourth round (2024), as a lucky loser
- US Open: first round (2024, 2025, 2026)
Season Snapshot (as of 27 October 2026)
Ranking. No. 148 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Career high No. 29 (February 2025).
2026 so far. A quarterfinal in Auckland in January, a four-set loss to Djokovic in the first round at Roland Garros, and no tour-level match win since June. He split with Planque in February.
This week. He qualified for the Swiss Indoors Basel, the title he won in 2024, and plays Fils in the first round, their first tour-level meeting. The Swiss Indoors Basel guide has the draw and past champions.
This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.
