An hour after his first disastrous attempt at extinguishing the best player in the world, Sebastian Korda walked back up to the baseline to serve for his fourth-round roller coaster against Carlos Alcaraz again.
The American might have been expected to feel his tension all the more intensely, to collapse even more spectacularly, but his will prevailed. Korda maintained his head and retained his nerve in front of his home crowd, in his home state, no less to deliver the biggest upset on the ATP tour this season — and one that will be hard to top in terms of significance over Korda’s career — beating the tournament’s top seed Alcaraz 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in the third round at the Miami Open.
It was a shocking upset delivered with an incandescent performance by Korda, the 32nd seed. For an hour, he played as best as he could. And his serve was dominant, rendering one of the best returners in the game unable to break him in any of his service games. He blasted the ball with his clean, destructive ground strokes. He was able to do whatever he wanted with the ball, volleying beautifully both when he often shut off the net and mirroring Alcaraz’s variation in similar breadth of feel.
Korda had been in command, leading 6-3, 5-3 when he imploded badly to lose seven points in a row and find himself quickly in a final set. It required tremendous fortitude for the American to regroup and navigate a tight third set.
“I’d say it was a tough match,” Alcaraz said. “I feel so many Sebi’s never got the chance to shine today. Played such a great game. A lot of close, close situations that I just didn’t capitalize on. I believe he was better for that point, at that moment. I would probably say that was the point of the match.” So just congrats to him. I think he deserves it.”
As Korda soared, Alcaraz grew an increasingly frustrated figure. Interactions between Alcaraz and his coach, Samuel Lopez, included the Spaniard saying “I can’t do any more, I can’t do any more!” and “I’m going home, I’m going home!” But he kept making an effort, and his frustrations nearly spawned a spectacular comeback.
There was never any question about Korda’s shotmaking skills. A son of the 1998 Australian Open winner. The younger Korda, son of Petr, has been seen as a fine talent since he won the Australian Open boys title and reached No 1 in the ITF junior ranks. Since then he has climbed as high as No 15 in the rankings, with occasional top 10 scalps, but the next step has eluded him. It is in his hands to capitalize on this colossal win, and carry the momentum forward instead of nonchalantly dismissing it as an abnormal outcome.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, will move into the clay-court season in a curious place. Miami was where the Spaniard endured one of the most challenging moments of his career last year when he suffered a second-round exit, devoid of confidence. His loss had sent him on a holiday and off tennis, a decision that set the table for his reversing form on the clay.
Things are not nearly as fraught here but this is the latest step in Alcaraz’s evolution and lessons learned as a top player. With the level he does at every single week, his adversaries need to be free-swinging and try as best they can to play without inhibitions and go deep for their very best. Staying at the top for such a long time requires reaching victory regardless.