{"id":400467,"date":"2026-01-08T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/400467\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:38:10","slug":"rinky-hijikata-suffers-three-set-loss-against-giovanni-mpetshi-perricard-at-brisbane-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/400467\/","title":{"rendered":"Rinky Hijikata suffers three-set loss against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard at Brisbane International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s Rinky Hijikata will turn his focus to the the Australian Open after his thrilling three-set loss to French serving maestro Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard at the Brisbane International.<\/p>\n

Hijikata, the world No.111, did not lose a service game in the second-round match as Mpetshi Perricard won the key tiebreak points in his 4-6 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-4) win.<\/p>\n

There are now no Australians left in the tournament which moves into the quarter-final phase in both the men’s and women’s sections.<\/p>\n

Hijikata, who came through the qualifiers, has a wildcard entry to the Australian Open where he will be aiming to advance beyond his previous best result of reaching the second round in 2023.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old has stated his desire to focus on lifting his world singles ranking above his best position of No.62 in August of 2024, attained after reaching his fourth ATP quarter-final of the season at the Winston-Salem Open.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard’s serve proved decisive in securing victory in Brisbane. (AAP: Darren England)<\/p>\n

“I feel like I have got so much more to improve and definitely got a lot of gears I can keep ticking over,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I am not even close to playing my best tennis. That’s a really positive thing.<\/p>\n

“I want to do as well as I can in my singles. That is my focus and always has been.<\/p>\n

“Whatever my career-high was, I feel like I have a lot more to give.”<\/p>\n

Hijikata has the 2023 Australian Open doubles title on his resume, achieved with countryman Jason Kubler.<\/p>\n

Last year he also made the Wimbledon final when teamed with Dutch doubles specialist David Pel.<\/p>\n

This year he is aiming for a second grand slam title with fellow Australian Tristan Schoolkate.<\/p>\n

Hijikata broke the Frenchman once in the opening set to take the lead and took the second set to a tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

He saved two set points but was unable to fend off the Frenchman, who took the match to a deciding third set.<\/p>\n

Mpetshi Perricard improved his serving in both the second and third sets to help gain the upper hand.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t really getting any looks at second serves. I feel like (his first serve ratio) was quite high,” Hijikata said.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to take care of my own serve. I didn’t get broken today and I feel like that is something to be proud of.<\/p>\n

“Credit to him. He came up with some big serves when he had to.”<\/p>\n

Hijikata was everywhere on court in an all-round display that augurs well for his Melbourne assault.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to take any opportunity I have to play at home for granted,” Hijikata said.<\/p>\n

“It is only a few weeks of the year and I really want to cherish it.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s Rinky Hijikata will turn his focus to the the Australian Open after his thrilling three-set loss to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,178628,112938,94311,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-400467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brisbane-international","11":"tag-giovanni-mpetshi-perricard","12":"tag-rinky-hijikata","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400467","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=400467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}