Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard has spoken out after asking for his first-round Wimbledon match to be suspended and carried overnight. The 6ft 8" French star was on course for a huge upset on Monday night, leading No. 5 seed Taylor Fritz by two sets to love. But Fritz stormed back to take the third, then rallied from 1-5 down in the fourth set tiebreak to settle the score at 10.15pm, with the 11pm curfew approaching.
The supervisor took to the court to ask the players whether they wanted to stop before the fifth set or play until the latest cut-off time, and Mpetshi Perricard seemed keen to call it for the night. Fritz came back to win the decider, and the world No. 36 has now explained why he didn't want to continue.
After suffering a 6-7(6) 6-7(8) 6-4 7-6(6) 6-4 defeat, Mpetshi Perricard said: "I mean, the supervisor came. He talked to Taylor, and Taylor said he wanted to continue. I checked the clock, and it was 10:20 or :25. Only 30 minutes left.
"I don't want to play a fifth one and stop at 4-4 or 5-5. For my part, the best decision was to play a full set the next day. I think the supervisor had a better -- I mean, had an idea before to ask us to do what we wanted to do."
As for why he didn't want to stop midway through the final set, the 21-year-old admitted he was also struggling physically. He added: "I don't know, to be honest, if it was better to stop or to continue. I wasn't in the best shape, to be honest, yesterday night.
"Yes, the preparation was tough. Tough to sleep still in the match. But you need to be focused, because it's like your final sprint, final round. Fifth set against a great player, you can't do some stupid mistakes. So I tried to do my best. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough."
Before returning to Court 1 on Tuesday night, Fritz took to Instagram to suggest that the decision had been in Mpetshi Perricard's hands. "They would've let us play if my opponent agreed to, I said I wanted to, he didn't," he wrote in a comment.
But, after storming back to win in five sets, the American said he had no hard feelings toward Mpetshi Perricard and understood his decision.
The recent Eastbourne champion said: "I obviously wanted to play last night. That's just because I do feel we had the time to play the fifth set last night. If we didn't have the time, then I understand there's no point of starting it. We could have played if we both agreed to play.
"I think he didn't want to. That's totally understandable. I wasn't bothered or I guess upset at him for not wanting to play. I totally, like, get it.
"But I still felt confident. I think it would have been easy for me to get frustrated about not being able to play last night. To be honest, I felt confident going into the fifth set if it was last night or today."
However, Fritz didn't know why the referee kept questioning him after a final call had been made. "They told us before the match, 'Hey, are you good to play till 11? We're going to stop at 11'," he recalled.
"When I'm looking at the clock at the end of the fourth set, I'm thinking, 'Oh, it's 10, there's no way they're going to stop us. We're for sure playing this fifth set'. The idea of stopping wasn't even in my mind. I was fully tunnel visioned on this match is finishing tonight.
"What happened was I get it. We both have to agree. If we don't, then the referee makes a decision. What I didn't understand, the referee, after he said what his decision was, he kept asking me. I think he just wanted me to, like, agree with him.
"I said, 'I don't know why you keep asking me because I want to play. Stop asking me because you already said we're not playing'. I didn't get that."
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