He is 22 years old and his tennis star is on the rise. The son of famed Czech tennis player Sebastian Korda represents the US, but surrounds himself with the Czech team. His main coach is Radek Štěpánek, who has the same name as Martin Štěpánek as his assistant. The talented youngster wants to be in the top fifteen by the end of the year, and Czech intelligence is the main thing that will help him do that.
The relationship between Korda and Štěpánek is shared. Former world number two Petr Korda coached his then “neighbor” from Florida for 13 years and helped him reach the top ten in both singles and doubles.
Now it is Štěpánek who is trying to push the Korda name to the absolute top. Last year they already tried it out together at the US Open, for example, and now they are entering a new season together.
“I think eventually I’ll coach her daughter again and we’ll continue the family tradition,” Korda Jr. said. laughs in an interview for the official ATP website.
He doesn’t even think of the two-time Czech Davis Cup winner as a coach, but rather as a friend and big brother who has helped him most of his life.
“I only have two sisters, I never had a brother and he was always there for me. We spent the holidays together, went to the mountains, he took me with him to tournaments, to the locker room, to the players’ dinners. Thank you Thanks to him, I quickly got used to the tennis life. I owe him a lot, I believe that’s why I’m here now,” Korda explained.
Radek Štěpánek, who previously coached Novak Djokovic or, for example, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, invited his namesake Martin, who worked with, for example, Tomáš Berdych.
“It’s a great team, they give me a lot, we get along well and everything is only and only positive,” boasted the twenty-two year old.
This can also be seen in the first results. In the general round of the first Grand Slam of the season, at the tournament in Adelaide, he reached the final, where he lost to eventual champion Djokovic.
“Seb is one of those players who has a beautiful clean streak. Everything in his tennis looks simple and natural, he is a real talent,” former world number one Djokovic said of him.
But Korda continues to improve himself and wants to take a lot from Štěpánek. “Radek plays a certain kind of tennis, he goes to the net a lot, he relies on intelligence and aggressiveness, these are the elements I want to have in my game,” Korda said.
He is currently in the bottom thirty of the rankings, and is looking to move a little closer to the elite by the end of the year. “The plan is to be in the top twenty or fifteen, I believe I have what it takes and I can do it,” he added.
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