Outside of Grand Slams and Masters 1000s, there is no tournament Sebastian Korda wanted to win more than the Citi Open. He attended the Washington, D.C. event many times as a boy and his dad, Petr, captured the title back in 1992. Petr was also Radek Stepanek’s coach when Stepanek lifted the trophy in 2011.
In the younger Korda’s fourth trip to D.C., he got the job done–beating Flavio Cobolli 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 in the final on Sunday evening. The 24-year-old American recovered from a slow start to cruise in one hour and 34 minutes.
“I’ve been coming to this tournament since I was a teenager,” Korda said during the trophy ceremony. “My dad used to coach Radek Stepanek, who also won here in 2011. We have a lot of history with this tournament, and obviously one of my biggest goals was one day coming here and hopefully winning the tournament and putting my name up there on the stadium. Now that I have the opportunity, this is probably the most special moment of my career so far.”
It was a borderline miracle week for both Korda and Cobolli. The former saved multiple match points early in the week against Thanasi Kokkinakis, including one in extremely improbable fashion with Kokkinakis serving for a straight-set win up a set and 5-3, 40-30 in the second. Cobolli won two consecutive matches in third-set tiebreakers, including from five match points down against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
It is the second ATP title for Korda following a success three years ago in Parma. Cobolli was competing in his first ATP final.
This marks the first time in tour history that a father and son have won the same tournament.
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nice one, Sebi
Nice win for Seb…and TP wins Montreal.