Resurgent Opelka 'virtually unbeatable when he's playing good tennis'

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard has taken the ATP Tour by storm over the past year with his booming serve, but the Frenchman is not the only serve-dominant player who strikes fear in his opponents. Reilly Opelka is in the same boat.

The former No. 17 player in the PIF ATP Rankings missed nearly two years, mostly due to a wrist injury. Because of that time away, he has not been at the forefront the same way Mpetshi Perricard has.

Opelka’s new traveling coach, the recently retired Denis Kudla, sees parallels between Mpetshi Perricard’s rocket-like ascent and his own player.

“I saw Perricard and practised with him when he was like No. 300 and [how] he made this rise to 30 in the world. I was saying in my head, ‘There's no reason you can't do the exact same thing, if not better’,” Kudla told ATPTour.com of Opelka. “It is pretty awesome. Again, I think being under the radar can be a gift. I don't think he's going to be under the radar right now, just because he took everything by storm. But at the same time, he knows what comes with it. He's been there before. I think that's an advantage for him, and I'm very confident that he's going to get back there.”

The 6’11” Opelka last week showed the rest of the Tour that despite the time away, his game has not missed a beat. The 27-year-old upset 99-time tour-level titlist Novak Djokovic en route to the Brisbane International presented by Evie final. Opelka also defeated Mpetshi Perricard during his run.

“Still a long way to go. Now my focus is just my body,” Opelka, who retired during the final against Jiri Lehecka, told ATPTour.com. “Now that my technique is back to what it needs to be to perform, my body has to adapt to it. By getting my old serve motion back, it flared up my back. I hope that's the last little issue or the last little adjustment, because everything else is good. And once I have my serve, I have more. I have the confidence. I can play more freely from the back. It all stems from that.”

Watch Opelka vs. Djokovic Brisbane Highlights:

Kudla pointed out that Opelka was a highly touted prospect well before he became the tallest man on the circuit armed with one of the best serves in the history of the sport.

“He's not a one-trick pony. Sometimes, a lot of these big guys, [people] think they're one-trick ponies. All they’ve got is a serve and just a little bit of power,” Kudla said. “He has got a lot of variety. He is a very all-around, good tennis player.

“There's a reason why he was one of the top sought-out juniors before he even hit six feet. It was not because they thought he was going to be seven feet at the time. It's because he was a good tennis player. I told him that, too.”

Kudla repeatedly stated that he feels Opelka can beat anybody on the Tour, as he proved in Brisbane against Djokovic. And the reason is not because he has a big serve.

“He has every single tool in the game,” Kudla said. “It's just believing and executing, which is the name of the game at the top level.”

At the same time, Opelka does have a massive weapon in his serve. According to Infosys ATP Stats, he has averaged 17.9 aces per match in his career, not far off the mark of John Isner, the all-time aces leader, who averaged 18.7.

The good news for Opelka is that he is now physically in a position to execute his best shot the way he would like. When he first missed time due to injury, it was because of his right hip. But that recovery was “smooth sailing” and allowed him to sit into the hip more during his serve.

“In order to play better from the baseline, I need to serve better,” Opelka said. “There are some technical things that went off a lot with my serve that I was doing to try to stay out of pain and without noticing. For the first time in my career, we made a ton of technical adjustments [to] my serve, my forehand, and my backhand, because they just changed to keep my wrist from throbbing without realising that those changes even occurred.”

Kudla was not always planning on retiring at the United Cup, where he competed for the final time. But he was offered the opportunity to work with Opelka and jumped at it, beginning their partnership in December.

“I even told him when he got in, ‘You ended my career a little earlier than I wanted to, but it's worth it for me. I see the vision. I see your upside’,” Kudla said. “I think he's virtually unbeatable when he's playing good tennis. And he can get there.”

Jay Berger, the former World No. 7, has long been an important part of Opelka’s team. Kudla remembers once calling Berger while watching film of their charge.

“I said, ‘Do you not get super excited and giddy every time you watch him on tape? Because it's unbelievable how good this guy is’. And he was like ‘Yeah’,” Kudla said. “All we have to do is to make sure that he believes it now too, and he can get there.”