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Sebastian Korda eliminated Daniil Medvedev in the second round of the ATP Master 1000 in Shanghai. The American achieved his second consecutive victory against the current number 3 in the ranking, after the success in three sets at the Australian Open at the beginning of the year.
At the end of the match, which ended with a score of 7-6(8) 6-2, the 23-year-old American analyzed his first career victory against a top 5 player.
Korda's words at the press conference
Korda expressed his satisfaction with the unexpected success.
"It was a great match. We both could have won the tie-break. I'm very happy to have played a couple of solid points, to have found a way to win it and then to have played an excellent second set.
During his set point I was thinking : This guy is incredibly fast.
He finds a way to put balls in the field. I hit a forehand volley into the corner and he recovered it somehow. It's very difficult to get a point. You have to be aggressive, do different things to disturb him as much as possible." Korda played a practically perfect service game: "I wish I could serve as well every game as I did today, that would make everything much easier.
I had an excellent first serve percentage. Against players like him you have to serve very well, you have to be aggressive on serve, hit and go to the net." For the American it is the first victory against a top 5, given that the last success against Medvedev came when the Russian occupied the 7th position in the ranking.
He said: "The last time I played him I think he was ranked 7th in the world, but obviously he's a top 3 player, regardless of what the rankings say. He's an incredible player and today I had to play great tennis to win the match." The American concluded by explaining that he doesn't suffer from the comparison with Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune: "Obviously they have better results than me.
I don't think I'm in the spotlight in any way. Just having a few good results here and there and I hope to get to compete with them. They are incredible players and I hope that I will play against them for many, many years."