The Resurgence Of Reilly Opelka

At almost 7ft tall, it is no surprise that the 27-year-old possesses the best serve on Tour. When you can serve bombs at around 210kmph constantly, you are a nightmare to play against – as he proved against de Minaur, where he produced 14 aces on his way to victory. Worryingly for the rest of the tour, Opelka admitted in his post-match interview: “I didn’t serve as well as I’d have liked to”. Rather, Opelka had to rely on his rallies and groundstrokes to get past the Australian #1.

Most players would be delighted to come up with 14 aces in two sets of tennis, but Opelka is on another level. By serving with such pace, Opelka is able to take the racket out of his opponents’ hands and immediately start points on the front foot. Additionally, he is extremely difficult to prepare for in practise – funnily enough, not many players on Tour can serve with the power Opelka does!

More Than a Serve Bot

Opelka is often described as a “Serve bot”, a term first coined to describe John Isner – the man with the most aces in ATP history. But while his serve is obviously the standout part of his game, he showed against de Minaur in Cincinnati that his groundstrokes are more than good enough.

He hit a remarkable 36 winners, compared to the Australian’s six, including a superb forehand winner down the line at 5-5 in the first-set tiebreak.

Opelka’s victory over de Minaur was his second top 10 win of the year, and his first was even more impressive – a win over 24 time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic on route to the final in Brisbane. Incredibly, that was Djokovic’s worst loss by ranking in over 20 years.

That day, Opelka was coming out on top in rallies against the greatest player of all time. While his solid baseline and net play will of course be overshadowed by his massive serve, when Opelka is on form, he can cause problems for any player on Tour. Next up for Opelka is Francisco Comesana in the round of 32, this is a winnable match for the American on home soil. Opelka lost in the third round of ATP Toronto the prior week, after upsetting Tomas Machac.

Climbing Back Up The Rankings

For the first half of the 2022 season , Opelka was consistently a top 20 player before injury struck. For almost two years, Opelka was plagued by constant injury issues, mainly with his hip and wrist. After multiple surgeries, one of which went badly wrong and resulted in an infection, Opelka dropped to as low as World No. 1188. He returned to the Tour midway through 2024, and has continued a steady rise back up the rankings since.

Despite winning Wimbledon as a junior, Opelka has never reached the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam. But if his body can keep up with him, and he can maintain the level that he has shown on occasions this year, then there is no reason why he can’t reach the latter stages of a Major. Might he do so at this years US Open, his home grand slam?