Is Giovanni Mpethsi Perricard The Next Serve GOAT?

Giovanni Mpethsi Perricard. I 'm gonna say Giovanni because his last name is very difficult to write out every single time. Nevertheless, the fact is that this guy came on the scene this year by winning the tournament in Lyon. I watched him play and right away you notice this guy has an unbelievable serve.

He lost in the final round of the 2024 Wimbledon qualifying draw, but he got in as a lucky loser because Davidovich Fokina pulled out and he played against Sebi Korda in the first round. Giovanni won 6-3 in the fifth set; the first four sets were tie breaks and he managed to hold serve the entire match and served 51 aces. I want you to realize that holding serve through the entirety of a match that long is something that is quite impressive and today I will analyze Giovanni’s serve and explain what you can learn from it.

Advantages

The haters are going to say that Gio is 6’8'' and that's why he has a good serve. I don't know how many times I have to explain that while there are advantages to being tall when it comes to the serve. You're going to have better angels, it's going to be easier to hit Aces because you're going to be able to serve shorter in the box. However, in order to serve well at any height you need to have excellent technique.

Giovanni’s serve rhythm is excellent, which I like to call the one two three rhythm. In other words, Giovanni will bounce the ball inside of the baseline and the weight will be fully on his front foot. He will then shift the weight onto his back foot with the tip of his foot going up into the air. At the same time he will also start pulling the racket arm and the toss arm closer to his body. Only later he will initiate the tossing movement and shift the weight back to the front foot.

Giovanni serves with a full lag, so as he's shifting the weight back to the front foot the toss movement will be initiated. The racket will go back but it will not start going up yet because the racket is frozen at this moment in time. I wrote an article in the past of why compartmentalizing the serve is important and this is part of what you can do. Feel free to check it out.

Coiling

Interestingly, Giovanni has a very wide separation in his initial stance on the serve and you might ask yourself why this matters. Well it matters a lot because if you pay close attention to the upper body. He has such a big separation between the feet as the racket starts going up that his elbow is already behind his body when the back foot starts pulling in. His hips and his upper body are still turned towards the back fence which means that once he gets to the trophy position he's going to remain fully coiled with his chest pointing towards the back fence.

Even though he serves at a pinpoint stance the fact that he has his feet far apart in the beginning portion of his serve means that he's going to get more of a coil even when that back foot pulls in. One commonality among the best servers in history is the fact that they have their chest up to the sky. As Giovanni gets into that trophy phase, his chest is not only turned towards the back fence, but is also pointing upwards.

In other words, he’s bending his body backwards while being fully coiled. This is by far the most optimal loading position when it comes to the serve. Once he starts unloading to serve not only does he get more angular momentum by rotating into the ball he also will straighten his torso and get a lot of up board thrust into the contact.

Preferences

A great comparison to this action is to a ruler. If you hold a ruler on both ends and let go of it you're going to get a lot of energy stored right in the midsection of that ruler. You can make that same argument for the serve. When you bend your body backwards and violently accelerate upwards you're going to get a lot of power from that movement of the body.

Now take caution at the recreational level. If you coil too much or if you're bent backwards too much you might not be able to get out of these positions. Please try to coil as much as possible, as you do want to bend backwards as much as possible. However, listen to your body. If it feels uncomfortable, you're probably doing too much of it. Remember that the adequate amount of coil is a position where the elbow is aligned with the torso and your chest is positioned towards the side fence. If you can't go back any further there's no problem serving with less of a coil.

Final Thoughts

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard reminds me of players back in the day. He has a one-handed back end that also has some classical technical characteristics. He does have a very modern forehand and he loves coming to the net. I would say he's a blast from the past and extremely fun to watch.

Something interesting to stay up to date on is Sebi Korda’s ace count. Remember that Giovanni hit 51 aces against the American. I’m personally curious how many matches, sets, or service games it takes Korda to reach such a number. Perhaps until the North American hardcourt swing. Who knows.

Having seen him play in Lyon and in some of the grass court tournaments I'm convinced that he's going to be regarded as one of the greatest servers in the world. If you wish to get your hopes even higher, potentially one of the best players in the world as well.