The Tiebreak King

This guy is turning out to be a pain to beat...

I'm talking about Mpetshi Perricard, of course! Five matches played in 2026, three of them went to a deciding set tiebreak, and he's won all three. 6 tiebreaks won and 1 tiebreak lost in total. If you look at the overall stats in a match, he has usually been the "weaker" player. However, he can win by simply being the best when it matters! That was the case yesterday as well. He saved a match point against Norrie at the end of the third set and then went on to play just about a flawless tiebreak; perfect unreturnable serving and two good points on return. He has been consistently finding his first serves at a very high rate in the tiebreaks, and his opponents tend to be a bit passive in their own service games, allowing GMP to hang in the rallies and find the moment to strike! Mensik's match yesterday should have prepared him a bit for this upcoming one. He had to face someone who has a huge serve and hits a big ball - Medjedovic. Despite being the better player, the match went on for quite a bit, extending to three sets and being delayed late due to rain.

Mensik is someone who excels against big hitters and attacking players. He can match them on serve and is quite underrated on return. Jakub prefers when he has pace coming at him from the other side, that he can redirect - this is where he really shines. He struggles a lot more against players with variety and high rally tolerance when he is forced to be the aggressor and find a way through them (De Minaur is a nightmare matchup). Also, players who can attack his second serve. This matchup should be somewhere in between, since GMP is an extreme case of a Big Server! GMP actually leads the H2H 2-0, and I remember how frustrated Mensik was when he had to GMP in Brisbane last year! Mensik is also great in tiebreaks in general, but GMP is clearly in the zone, and also the one less likely to be affected emotionally and have that impact his game. Conditions here are not as service-friendly as in Brisbane, so perhaps that is a small advantage for Mensik, allowing him to get into more rallies. Finally, we have seen players turn up with a bit of a "hangover" after having played late the previous night, this is something ot keep in mind for Mensik as well!