Despite the elimination of Benjamin Bonzi, French tennis will have a representative in the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 tournament in Brisbane.
After his first success against Nick Kyrgios in three tie-breaks (7-6, 6-7, 7-6), Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard came up against Frances Tiafoe in the eighth.
The two men had already faced each other at the end of 2024, during the first round of the Masters 1000 at Paris-Bercy.
Supported by his audience, Mpetshi Perricard overthrew the American (6-7, 7-6, 6-3). The 21-year-old hopes to repeat this performance, this time in Australia.
In a match where the two players did not have many opportunities to break, it was the Frenchman who was the most effective (1 break point converted out of 3, compared to 0 out of 2 for Tiafoe) to win the first set 6 games to 4.
The second set was just as tight and ended in the tiebreak without a break. There too, Mpetshi Perricard was the strongest and finally won (6-4, 7-6).
After having achieved more than 30 aces against Kyrgios when he entered the fray, the eighth finalist at Wimbledon last year once again improved his serving statistics (20 aces in 1h32).
In the quarters, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard will face a new great server in the person of Jakub Mensik. The Czech easily dominated the Serbian lucky loser Dusan Lajovic (6-3, 6-2).
