This morning in Brisbane, a semifinal will take place between two true giants of the tour, Reilly Opelka and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. The Frenchman, born in 2003, is rapidly climbing the world rankings with an uncatchable serve and also a more than decent baseline game given his size. The American is returning to the tour after a very long inactivity due to serious physical problems and was very good at surprising Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, serving like a champion and more. In fact, Reilly went to take decisive points by pushing hard on the return and applying pressure from the baseline. This is nothing new: let's remember that the American boasts a semifinal at the Internazionali d'Italia on clay (2021), evidence of how his tennis is much more than a very strong serve.
The Brisbane challenge sees two of the tallest tennis players on the tour on the court: Opelka is 211 cm, Mpetshi Perricard 203. Is this the "tallest" combination in the history of the ATP Tour? No, but it is one of the biggest. Starting from the creation of the current Pro Tour (1990), the 414 cm obtained by adding the heights of Opelka and Mpetshi Perricard is the seventh challenge for total height of the two players on the field. Let's see which are the highest disputed.
4m 19cm: Karlovic (211cm) vs Isner (208cm) – the two faced each other 5 times between 2008 and 2014, with the Croatian winning 3 to 2
4m 19cm: Opelka (211cm) vs Isner (208cm) – the two Americans played 6 times between 2016 and 2022, with a score of 5 to 1 for Reilly
4m 14cm: Karlovic (211cm) vs Anderson (203cm) – 5 matches between 2011 and 2019, with the South African winning 4 times
4m 14cm: Karlovic (211cm) vs De Schepper (203cm) – two matches between the Croatian and the Frenchman (2012 and 2014), with two wins for Ivo
4 meters 14 cm: Karlovic (211 cm) vs Janowicz (203 cm) – a single match in 2015, with Ivo beating the Pole
4 meters 14 cm: Opelka (211 cm) vs Anderson (203 cm) – two wins in as many matches for Reilly, played in 2016 and 2022
4 meters 14 cm: Opelka (211 cm) vs Mpetshi Perricard (203 cm) – first meeting between the two “giants”.
Curiously, Karlovic and Opelka have never faced each other, with the 4 meters and 22 cm combined it would have been the highest match in the modern era of the game.
And instead, which match has the biggest height gap? Karlovic vs Olivier Rochus: the Belgian in fact – according to the ATP profiles – is 168 cm, with a difference of 43 cm between the two! However, it was precisely the talented fast tennis of the little Oliver that prevailed, 2-1 for him in the direct confrontations with the Croatian. In tennis, service and size are important, but they are not everything (luckily…!).