Nick Kyrgios says he will “need a miracle” to contend for a grand slam title after an injury comeback loss that offered a sobering reality check.

The Australian could only shrug his shoulders as big-serving rising star Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard left him with a “throbbing” wrist and crashed his comeback party in the Brisbane International first round on Tuesday.

Kyrgios was frustrated but showed fight and fitness in a 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3) loss that stretched nearly two-and-a-half hours and featured no breaks of serve.

The 21-year-old French talent surged from outside the world’s Top 200 to finish 31 in the world this year due to a serve that is among the most devastating on the tour.

Kyrgios, playing just his second tour-level singles match in two-and-a-half years after a troublesome wrist injury, experienced the full brunt of that a day after partnering Novak Djokovic in a Monday night doubles win.

“I felt I’d been hit by a bus after the doubles,” Kyrgios said after admitting his wrist was “throbbing”.

“For my wrist it’s all new ground … I went from practising with people unranked to facing the biggest server … on the planet and, ‘let’s see how you go’.

“We were not expecting to be playing here at such a high level.”

Mpetshi Perricard served 36 aces to Kyrgios’s 15, regularly topping 220km/h with ease and backing himself with huge second serves to compound the pain.

“Surely you understand my frustration,” Kyrgios told the chair umpire Christian Rask, who had quietly warned him to watch his language after missing a rare chance to break in the second set.

Kyrgios, 29, was otherwise subdued against the ice-cold Frenchman, who gave the Australian an ironic dose of his own medicine as he prepares to relaunch a career based around his own incredible serve.

A running forehand winner gave the French talent an early buffer in the first-set tie-break, sealed with a ninth ace and a 73% first serve percentage.

Mpetshi Perricard had Kyrgios guessing again as the second set hurtled towards a tie-break.

Kyrgios turned the screws and forced some errors to level the contest and cracks began to appear on both players’ serves in the decider.

The Australian was fluent in the third set but again it was the French star who pounced on an early error to take control of the decisive tie-break before serving his way to victory.

Earlier Alexei Popyrin’s Australian Open preparations hit a snag as he was humbled by Matteo Arnaldi in the Brisbane International first round.

The world No 24 Australian was outplayed 6-3, 6-2 on Tuesday as the Italian moved to 3-1 in their career head-to-head.

Popyrin will be seeded for the first time at next month’s Australian Open after a 2024 headlined by his Masters 1000 triumph in Montreal and upset of Novak Djokovic to reach the fourth round of the US Open.

Australian world No 93 Adam Walton then pushed fifth-seeded American Frances Tiafoe, who saved set points in the first set before turning the tables in a 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 victory.