{"id":399650,"date":"2026-01-08T11:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T11:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399650\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T11:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T11:47:24","slug":"rinky-hijikata-loses-in-three-sets-vs-giovanni-mpetshi-perricard-video-result-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399650\/","title":{"rendered":"Rinky Hijikata loses in three sets vs Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, video, result, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rinky Hijikata<\/a> has gone down in an absolute thriller at the Brisbane International<\/a>, losing two tiebreaks in a three-set loss to Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old cult hero was up to the task against the Frenchman, who came into the clash more than 40 spots higher than the Australian on the ATP rankings.<\/p>\n

But it was rising star Mpetshi Perricard who walked away with the 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(4) victory and put an end to Hijikata’s time at the tournament.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: England confirms full-scale review amid calls for sackings<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Hijikata broke his opponent mid-way through the opening set and closed it out to take the lead, getting the crowd at Pat Rafter Arena right behind him.<\/p>\n

Mpetshi Perricard bounced back in the second set but the Aussie remained strong on serve, sending it to a gripping tiebreak that the Frenchman eventually won 7-5.<\/p>\n

That set up another wildly even third and final set, which again went down to the wire and was described as an “arm wrestle” by commentator Tom Rehn.<\/p>\n

The Aussie tennis summer kicks off with the 2026 United Cup from Friday, January 2. Watch it live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a deuce game, Hijikata dug deep once again and made it a perfect outing on serve to set up yet another tiebreak in a ding-dong battle in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

“That is first-class from the Aussie and in two hours of tennis, he was not broken once,” Rehn said on commentary after Rijikata went ahead 6-5. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rinky Hijikata.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

But in devastating fashion, Hijikata dropped a mini-break and Mpetshi Perricard made the most of the golden opportunity, icing the match in two hours and 13 minutes.<\/p>\n

“A brilliant match from both players, but Mpetshi Perricard holds on,” Rehn said.<\/p>\n

It proved to be a gallant effort from Rijakata, who is the world No.111 and is pushing for a spot back inside the top-100 during the Aussie summer.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Mpetshi Perricard had caused an upset when he defeated world No.20 Tommy Paul, who had come into the event as the fourth seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rinky Hijikata has gone down in an absolute thriller at the Brisbane International, losing two tiebreaks in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-399650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}