By Tennis Now | @TennisNow | Friday, February 14, 2025
Picture credit score: Patrick Hamilton/AFP/Getty
Tennis balls will probably be endangered species when Reilly Opelka faces Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard for title of world’s quickest server.
Two of the sport’s greatest servers will sq. off Sunday, March 2 in The Ace Problem Offered by Michelob ULTRA to earn the title of the sport’s quickest serve. The winner will take dwelling a money prize as a part of the The MGM Rewards Slam weekend at Michelob ULTRA Enviornment at Mandalay Bay Resort and On line casino in Las Vegas.
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The 27-year-old Opelka appears to make his approach again up the ATP Tour rankings, the place he reached a profession excessive No. 17 in 2022, following almost two years off as a consequence of harm. Someday after upsetting all-time males’s Grand Slam wins chief Novak Djokovic on the Brisbane Worldwide to begin the yr, Opelka downed Perricard within the semifinals earlier than pulling out of the ultimate as a consequence of a again harm.
The six-foot-eight, 21-year-old Mpetshi Perricard had a breakout yr in 2024 and owns a present career-high ATP rating of No. 30. He leads the ATP Tour with a mean of 19.3 aces per match and is at the moment ranked No. 1 with a 302.1 service ranking. He made headlines earlier within the yr with a booming 144 miles-per-hour serve. Final yr at Wimbledon, he cracked 51 aces in a single match.
In Saturday’s important occasion, girls’s World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka will face off in opposition to former No. 1 Naomi Osaka for the coveted Lion’s Cup. Sabalenka, the latest Australian Open finalist from Belarus, is a three-time Grand Slam singles champion whereas Japan’s Osaka has earned 4 Grand Slam titles, together with her first two back-to-back on the 2018 U.S. Open and 2019 Australian Open.
In Sunday’s motion, males’s World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev and Individuals Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, ranked Nos. 4 and 9, respectively, will take part in a four-player round-robin occasion utilizing 10-point tiebreakers. The 2 gamers with the very best factors will compete in a Championship Tiebreak for the boys’s model of the Lion’s Cup.
Tickets are on sale now by way of axs.com. Single-day tickets begin at $55 and two-day tickets at $127.50, not together with relevant service costs or charges.
