Korda comes through 💪 Sebastian Korda hangs on to prevail in a 6-7, 6-2, 7-6 QF thriller over Shelton in Shanghai! #RolexShanghaiMasters | #MubadalaCitiDCOpen
"Obviously, I would love to be better than my dad" says Sebastian Korda with Grand Slam goal, but no pressure to match major winning sister golfer
ATPSaturday, 30 December 2023 at 02:30
World No.
24 Sebastian Korda is preparing for the start of the 2024 season after a year
where he achieved his best ranking with notable performances in Grand Slams but
lacked consistency throughout the year due to injuries.
The
American tennis player comes from a family filled with notable figures in
sports. His father, Petr Korda, was the champion of the 1998 Australian Open,
and his mother, Regina Rajchrtová, played in the WTA and reached world No. 26.
Both his sisters, Jessica and Nelly, are professional golfers.
Korda comments on his family's sporting success
Recently,
his sister Nelly Korda won one of the LPGA Tour Majors, but Korda said he
doesn't feel pressure from his family's successes: "I don’t think it
creates any pressure," the 23-year-old American tennis player told a press
conference. "In the end, we’re all doing kind of what we love to do.
Tennis is something that I just love doing. It doesn’t matter if it’s playing,
watching; I watch tennis all day long, basically. I just really enjoy being
here, really enjoy playing tennis," he added.
Sebastian
Korda is preparing to defend the quarterfinals of the 2023 Aussie Open and
maintain his position in the upper ranks. The American feels comfortable in
Australia, where he won the junior title at the 2018 Australian Open:
"Obviously, I would love to be better than my dad," Korda said.
“My
ultimate goal in tennis is to win two Grand Slams, one more than my dad. That’s
just, you know, little things like that, but I don’t think there’s any
pressure. I just really love playing tennis, and just really having a lot of
fun right now.”
Sebastian Korda’s injury
The young
American ended 2023 with a record of 26-13 as he missed several tournaments
during the year due to injury: "Yeah, my injury actually started last
year, probably like around this time," he said. "I was battling with
a wrist, then it was okay, then it got progressively worse during the training
block right before the Australian Open."
“I played
in Adelaide, it was okay. As I started playing best-of-five, a lot of matches,
against a lot of really big servers, especially going to the forehand, yeah, it
was difficult, it started hurting a lot.”
“Then, it
was just a super long journey from there. I was out for three months, and just
had to re-learn, basically, all the tennis stuff that I did, especially with
the wrist. I was, basically, every single practice, every single forehand that
I hit, I was kind just praying that it would stop hurting, and it just never
would,” he added.
“Now,
occasionally I still have some issues. Obviously, that forehand in the
tiebreaker is one of the things. I just don’t have a lot of reps, you could
say, on my forehand side, on my forehand, on my forehand volleys, returning.
It’s just something that will come, I just got to play a lot more matches, a
lot more practices and hopefully it becomes normal again,” Korda concluded.
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