One of the stories of the two weeks in Miami was the form of Sebastian Korda who made it to the quarter finals on his debut in Miami, a tournament in which his dad was once a semi-finalist in 1993.
On the back of his run to the fourth round of the 2020 French Open on his debut it was good to see Seb Korda continuing to produce results and grow as a player.
He begun his year in Delray Beach and planned his schedule to play some Challengers in Europe before heading to Acapulco and this last week Miami. I totally respect a player who plans a schedule not just based on where their ranking takes them.
He could have gone to Melbourne in January and play in Australian Open qualifying but opted against it to play his schedule.
Seb looked sharp, watching him this last week in Miami it fascinating to watch his baseline game. He has good touch and I agree with Diego Schwartzman that he does remind me of Tomas Berdych in the way he plays.
One part of his game which stood out for me is his backhand, the way he strikes the ball has been fantastic to watch over the course of the last few months and in Miami recently.
The preparation behind the backhand in particular is soo smooth and he hits the ball soo cleanly. It is slightly unusual in his preparation to hit the backhand that his body doesn’t rotate as much pushing off from his standing leg.
This was one of the first, he just served and picked up the backhand, didn’t move his feet just adjusted his body position and led into the backhand with his arms and his right foot acting as an anchor.
Similar one seconds later as he picked it off to win the point:
Standing leg acts as an anchor for Seb who generates all the power through his arms. It is slightly unusual for this backhand not to see the left leg come around as the generator of the power and to be parallel with his right but the hitting was silky smooth and deadly.
There was soo much to like from his performances and it does open up questions on how far can he go, it is too easy to get stuck in those conversations but I am interested to see what he does over the next couple of years. In 9 months we have seen him go from 225 in the world to top 70 despite many events being cancelled and as mentioned at the beginning of the piece he has done all this but without having to play at all the big events and picking his own schedule.
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