WIMBLEDON — Novak Djokovic is trying to win his fifth consecutive Wimbledon, a reminder if any more were needed that he is the dominant force in grass-court tennis.
Carlos Alcaraz, the world No 1 and Queen’s champion, is a strong pretender, but after him there is precious little to suggest anyone can stop him. Djokovic arrived at SW19 with 86 match wins at this venue to his name. The rest of the top 20 have 85 between them. It is a gaping chasm in experience.
One man many think can bridge that gap is Sebastian Korda, the American who made waves at Queen’s when he declared he was one of the favourites for Wimbledon.
“I’ve definitely learned to probably take a couple minutes after [a match] and relax a little bit. I got a little ahead of myself!” Korda tells i.
The 22-year-old cuts a relaxed figure, more than comfortable in the grandiose setting of Stoke Park, where he is playing the Boodles exhibition event, his last tune-up for Wimbledon.
Not, it seems, that he thinks he needs it.
“I definitely do consider myself one of the top grass-court players,” Korda adds.
“I have a game for it. So it’s just kind of getting the experiences. There’s a lot of great players, obviously draws are gonna be very tough, but I think it’s gonna be a great tournament.”
Korda’s confidence in his game is backed up by having reached his first grand slam quarter-final in Australia earlier this year, before a wrist injury forced him to retire mid-match against Karen Khachanov.
What initially seemed to be a minor problem turned into a more serious one, to the extent that he did not play a competitive match for more than three months.
The one advantage of the particularly injury though was that he could still do a lot of physical endurance work, and he hired Jez Green, formerly of Andy Murray and Alexander Zverev’s teams, to lead on an extended strength and conditioning block in Florida.
“We did such a great job, especially at IMG Academy, we have such a an amazing facility,” Korda says.
“I’d start my day at eight in the morning and finishing at seven o’clock at night, so it was a long days for sure, but with how everything was going, with the tools that I had to recover every single day, it definitely made everything easier.
“We definitely learned a lot about each other and I think where we should go in the near future.”
Injuries are not a new challenge to Korda, whose 6ft 5in frame always looked a little ungainly and bandy-legged. He had shin splints and foot problems last year that forced him to pull out of Wimbledon last year, costing him a whole heap of points and his place in the top 50.
He is now back in there and then some, the No 22 seed in the men’s draw this week.
Korda is a bigger man now too: Green has had to help him buy a new wardrobe after going up a size on top and bottom – “my butt got a little bigger as well” – and gaining more than seven kilos in weight, but with no loss of speed. If anything, the opposite.
“I definitely feel a lot faster out on the court,” Korda adds.
“I think I move a lot better. So I don’t think I lost anything.
“I’m stable a lot more. I was very tall and kind of skinny and I could be all over the place sometimes. So [it was] just kind of making myself stronger again and really making sure everything’s stable and ready to go.
“Jez is experienced with very tall players with Murray and Zverev. Very, very tall guys who move incredibly well so I think it was a great addition for me and I think it’s really paying off.
“For every surface, [Jez] kind of has a preparation on how to get comfortable on the surface and really get your feet going.”
Korda is tight-lipped on Green’s exact methods.
“Just a lot of movement, just getting familiar with the grass and especially in Queen’s, playing a lot of great matches so that was a very big plus for me. I was very happy. A great place to be to prepare.”
Korda has added a physio too, Mark Bender, who also worked with Murray.
“I just need Ivan [Lendl],” Korda jokes. “I’m coming for him!”
Lendl would probably fit right in. Korda’s father Petr won the 1998 Australian Open, his coach Radek Stepanek is a former top-10 player and Czech is the on-court language of the Korda camp.
Korda Jr also counts eight-time grand slam champion Andre Agassi as “one of the most special people” in his life and has hit with both him and his wife Steffi Graf (22 slams) – but there is no risk of information overload.
“I think the way that my team is it could be a lot of people at times but I think my team does a really good job of communicating well together and then having one voice through Radek or Martin Stepanek [another coach, but no relation] and just giving me the information. My team is very good in that sense as they don’t allow too many people to just throw random stuff out. We sit down, talk about what’s the best thing we can do, and then we go from there.”
