Americans Desperately Seeking The Next Pete Sampras

Sebastian Korda

MIAMI OPEN, USA

Well, perhaps not desperately, but they definitely would like to see an American male tennis player stepping up consistently.  Nothing against the young male players that we have currently.  Still the evidence speaks for itself.  The last American male player to win a major was Andy Roddick in 2003.

DJOKOVIC STILL THE GUY TO BEAT

Novak Djokovic does not seem ready to relinquish his dominance atop the field.  Rafael Nadal’s reign at Roland Garros may be coming to an end.  Dominic Thiem has cracked the barrier and perhaps he will be the one to take over at Roland Garros.  Who knows what Roger Federer has left in his tank following his bilateral knee surgeries.  The last major Federer won was the 2018 Australian Open.

MEDVEDEV STEPPING UP IN MIAMI

There are some younger players with promise, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev to name two; however, none of them are Americans.  Yet, there are some promising youngsters, and one of them has grabbed the spotlight in Miami; his name is Sebastian Korda.  Many of you may recognize the last name, his father is former tennis player, Petr Korda.  Father made it as high as the number two ranked; and his Mother was also a WTA player, who got to number twenty-six in the rankings.  Tennis runs in young Korda’s veins.

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KORDA READY TO ROCK MIAMI

20-year-old Sebastian Korda defeated the number nine ranked player, Diego Schwartzman in three sets last night.  The tension was evident in the third set when Korda served for the match at 5-4 up.  His shots had no sting and his serve deserted him.  The Argentine evened the match at 5-5 in third;  however, Korda showed his mental fortitude to immediately break back, getting a second shot at claiming his first quarterfinal spot at a Masters 1000 event. With the 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 victory, Korda also claimed his first top ten victory.

At a current singles ranking of eighty-seven, Korda can cement his names in our minds if he can ride this wave to the final.  He will have to get past the fiery Russian Andrey Rublev.  This will be there first encounter and everyone knows that he will bring it; thus, Korda will be in for a battle.

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