Korda has three victories at the top level of tennis. He is part of a wave this French Open of players who benefit by the lack of crowds and other changes.
Roland Garros has gone down the rabbit hole this year, so it was perfectly logical that Sebastian Korda, who has three career ATP match victories, gushed on Friday that he would be “the happiest person on planet Earth” if his next opponent was Rafael Nadal, he of the 12 French Open titles. The 20-year-old Korda, ranked No.213, dispatched Pedro Martínez, ranked No.105, by 6-4,6-3,6-1 on Friday to set up his fourth-round dreamscape against the second-ranked Nadal. “I named my cat after him,” Korda said of Nadal, “so that explains a lot how much I love him.” Nadal advanced with a right-as-rain,6-1,6-4,6-0, victory over Stefano Travaglia that restored a smidgen of normalcy on another day of Grand Slam tennis in ski jacket weather. Under stormy skies in Paris, there was enough turbulence in the draw to shake loose Stan Wawrinka, the 2015 champion. Wawrinka fell,2-6,6-3,6-3,4-6,6-0, to Hugo Gaston, a wild-card entry from France ranked No.239. For Gaston,20, who also hadn’t won a tour-level match before this week, explaining how he beat Wawrinka seemed just as difficult as actually pulling it off. “It’s difficult to explain,” he said, adding, “Of course, for the moment it’s amazing for me. It’s a dream. But I try to stay focused.” In the best of years, the French Open is the most unpredictable of majors because of its slow clay surface, which can neutralize the power and speed of many elite players and has rescued from obscurity the likes of Argentina’s Gastón Gaudio, the 2004 men’s champion, and Iva Majoli, the 1997 women’s winner. But given that the event was moved from spring to autumn and contested with only a smattering of spectators because of the coronavirus pandemic, and that it is using a new brand of balls that Nadal has described as “slow and heavy,” this year’s edition has been even more unpredictable than most.
