Sebastian Korda of the United States beat sixth seed Jannik Sinner of Italy 7-5 6-1 in the quarterfinal of the Adelaide International on Friday. The 22-year-old Korda thus won the battle of the two promising youngsters to stay in course for his second career ATP title.
Korda will now face Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan in the first semifinal on Saturday.
Let us take a look at how the match progressed:
The quality of Korda’s serve improved as the first set progressed:
Korda started the match in a brilliant manner by breaking Sinner to love in the very first game. He hit a wonderful return winner on the second point to set the tone.
The American then held his serve to love to go 2-0 up. However, Sinner then broke back to draw level and led 5-4 at one stage.
However, Korda again broke the 21-year-old Italian in the 11th game to go 6-5 up and then served out the set. The quality of Korda’s serve improved considerably as the set progressed. He was serving quite innocuously initially, but started hitting them with more venom towards the latter stages of the set.
Korda’s serves repeatedly reached the vicinity of 120 mph during the last few games of the set, as Sinner had not opportunity to bounce back.
Sinner kept hitting his shots long as Korda raced through the second set:
Sinner made an ordinary start to the second set as well, as Korda broke him in the first game and then held his serve to go up by a couple of games. The American then broke Sinner twice more to race through the set.
Sinner struggled to keep the ball inside the court during the longer rallies and hit a quite a few shots long in the second set to make Korda’s job easier. Korda also played a few nice drop shots and a brilliant defensive lob to enthrall the spectators.
Korda continued to serve with a lot of power in the second set and gave his Italian opponent no chance to assert himself in the match.
Main Photo from Getty.
