It was a fantastic moment on behalf of me and that I couldn’t have written it any better, says Sebastian Korba.
It’s rare that an athlete calls being on the incorrect end of a 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 slam result “super awesome” or “definitely the simplest moment of my life.”
It’s also rather rare for a player to travel up to the internet and ask the guy who just beat him for an autographed shirt.
Sebastian Korda, the 20-year-old American qualifier who lost to Rafael Nadal by the above scoreline within the French Open’s fourth round Sunday, still was beaming afterward.
“Ever since I used to be a child, I mean, I used to be crazy with him and everything about him. I might watch every single match. Doesn’t matter who he was playing or what tournament he was playing. He was the guy on behalf of me,” said Korda, whose cat is known as after the 12-time champion at Roland Garros.
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“It was a fantastic moment on behalf of me and that I couldn’t have written it any better.”
Imagine how he may need to be reacted if he’d been within the room for Nadal’s post-match press conference when this assessment of Korda was offered: “I really predict that he getting to have a really good future.”
The 213th-ranked Korda was the youngest American man to form it to the fourth round in Paris since 1991 and made bound to take in every moment in Court Philippe Chatrier on Sunday, albeit the wind that kept kicking loose dirt off the clay surface felt “like a tornado, sometimes,” he said.
After feeling tight in warmups, Korda — whose father, Petr, won the 1998 Australian Open and was a finalist at the 1992 French Open, and whose mother, Regina, was ranked within the Top 30 — loosened up and hung in there with Nadal at the outset.
Korda’s cross-court backhand winner earned a breakpoint, but Nadal erased it with a body serve that drew a netted return. A forehand winner to cap a 10-stroke exchange earned a second break chance, and Nadal dismissed that one with a body serves, too. in time, Nadal led 1-0 and essentially was on his way.
Gave me a belief that I can continue with him on the clay,” Korda said. “The first game was massive on my behalf of me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t close it.”
Two particular moments produced by Nadal stood bent Korda. One was a running winner of the King of Clay’s famous lefty forehand. The other?
He almost hit an around-the-net forehand,” Korda said, “and I used to be quite begging for it to travel in because that might are the good thing ever.”
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