“My ultimate goal in tennis is to win two Grand Slams, one more than my dad!” Shanghai semi-finalist Korda on his love of tennis

Sebastian Korda has struggled with injury in recent months, but he made it clear that he has lost neither his love of tennis nor his sense of humour after reaching the semi-final of the Shanghai Masters 1000.

“Tennis is something that I just love doing,” he told reporters. “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.

Same thing with my sisters [golfers Nelly and Jessica], they love doing what they’re doing. I don’t think there’s any pressure with it. Obviously, I would love to be better than my dad. 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.”

Korda: In certain moments, you’ve got to stay calm

He also noted that far from creating pressure, his father Petr’s tennis career actually helped him.

“That’s probably one of the biggest things of having a father who played tennis was to kind of understand certain moments. I think in those certain moments you got to stay really calm. You can have such a big lead like that and you could just completely panic or get super down on yourself and just get lost.

“I think that’s one of the biggest things both my parents really taught me is to, you know, one, is to always believe in yourself, no matter the situation, to just really go after it. Whatever happens, happens, you just got to believe in yourself, go after it, and just enjoy the moment. It’s still a super nervous moment, for sure, but in those moments you really do enjoy them, you just want to be on the victory side of things.”

Korda: I prayed my wrist would stop hurting and it never would

As for the injury that kept him on the sidelines for so much of this year, the American is confident he will be able to get back to his physical best.

“My injury actually started last year, probably like around this time. 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.

“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.”

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