Sebastian Korda must have thought he had a chance.
After beating a gruff Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets in the first round, the 23-year-old American faced Jannik Sinner at the right time, if such a thing can exist these days: the Italian was heading towards his least favorite. surfaced in Monte-Carlo, with hopes of a dazzling start to the year and a new status as the second best player in the world.
After 20 minutes, Korda would have kept that in mind. Broken in the first game – it happens – he had pushed Sinner on his first serve, trading two points. He had succumbed, but he was still there, holding the score 1-2.
Twenty-four minutes later he lost the set 6-1, with Sinner winning 100% of the points on his first serve. He got one more game in the second, losing 6-2.
To hell with red clay: the Sinner juggernaut is not slowing down.
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The 22-year-old Italian’s numbers keep piling up and getting more and more ridiculous. Sinner is 23-1 for the year, with his only loss coming against chief opponent Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells. He won the Masters 1000 in Miami in a sprint that seemed as easy as a trot, eliminating Daniil Medvedev in a catastrophically one-sided semifinal. He then faced Grigor Dimitrov, who had just made Alcaraz feel, in the Spaniard’s own words, “like I was 13 years old”, before overtaking Alexander Zverev.
Sinner beat him 6-3, 6-1 in another brutal display.
Against Korda, in addition to winning 100% of the points on the first serve of the first set, he saved all three break points during this long first service game. His return index, which takes into account speed, spin, depth and width, was 245. Korda’s was 50. The American didn’t play particularly badly, he just couldn’t do facing a player who has become more and more inevitable with each passing month. Worse still, luck wasn’t even on her side – Sinner timed a simple put volley so badly that she came loose from the edge of her frame and landed, just out of the increasingly desperate reach of Korda.
Before Monte Carlo, Sinner had expressed what, on the surface, appeared to be very real fears regarding his transition to clay. He said: “It’s not the surface where I feel so comfortable. I feel more comfortable on hard courts,” before describing what a difficult time he had last year. Of his 13 titles, only one has surfaced, making up the first half of the organic European season, and last year he couldn’t get further than a semi-final against eventual vice-president. champion Holger Rune in Monte Carlo.
But buried in those anxieties was a familiar Sinner mantra, one that saw him go from an extremely promising but unhardened prospect to the best player in the world on his current form in a matter of months. He was taking his time.
“I am convinced that I can be a good player on clay. It takes time. I trained a lot on clay from the age of 14 to 20. I’m very excited to be here. If you have a good friendship with clay, that can help,” he said.
Being home in Monte Carlo – the base of choice for so many tennis players for its amenities, both in terms of temperature and taxation – undoubtedly helps. But winning such a crushing victory against an in-form Korda will give him confidence for Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros, where he will likely still play second seed behind Carlos Alcaraz (if he recovers from an arm injury) and Novak. Djokovic. But that won’t bother Sinner: he’s bided his time long enough and if these are the results, he’ll do it some more.
(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)