Rick Macci, the man who played an instrumental role in the development of Venus and Serena Williams’ careers, often shares his thoughts on the promising talents in American tennis. Talking about spotting the potential in young guns, we have time and again seen Macci speaking about the 24-year-old American tennis player from Florida. Who’s he? Here’s a hint, he won the Citi Open and then went on to reach his first Masters 1000 SF by beating Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev at the Canadian Open. However, after that, he failed to make an impact on the rest of his tournaments. An elbow injury ruled him out of the season! How does Macci look at his chances, though?
Well, Serena Williams’ ex-coach, Rick Macci has always been a big admirer of Sebastian Korda. However, Korda’s elbow surgery after the US Open has now raised a few concerns among his fans. While sharing an update on the surgery in October, he stated, “I wanted to update you all — I’ve been dealing with some elbow issues and my team and I decided surgery was the best option. Everything went great, and I can’t wait to be back on court soon. Thanks for all your support!” If we look at his record this season, Korda has played 51 matches and won 32 out of them.
He’s desperate to make a strong comeback in 2025, but what are his chances of achieving greatness in the upcoming years? Well, Serena Williams’ former coach, Rick Macci recently put up a tweet stating, “The American who will make the most noise barring injury and could grab a Grand Slam and be a permanent fixture in the top 10 for many years in Seb Korda. He has a little different skill set that has unique elements that make others uncomfortable at times.”
Previously, we’ve seen many of his predictions turning out to be true! So, it’ll be interesting to see if Sebastian Korda can really live up to the expectations of Macci.
However, this isn’t the first time that we’ve heard him heaping praise on Korda. In May 2023, during a conversation at the Tennis Unfiltered podcast, Rick Macci said, “I think Sebastian Korda, in my opinion, is the leader in the clubhouse. He is the most talented American. Kind of hits the forehand like Federer and his backhand is like Agassi. I mean it’s automatic. I think he can win multiple Grand Slams.” He believes this lad has “tremendous pedigree.” What does, Korda think of his chances of winning a Grand Slam, title though?
Sebastian Korda shares his thoughts on multiple slams like Serena Williams
This year perhaps it didn’t go the way he’d have wanted. Previously, we saw him withdrawing from the Dubai Tennis Championships and then he missed almost full of the Asian swing. Perhaps he needs a bit of calmness in his mind to kick-start his 2025 campaign on a higher note. Talking about bringing calmness in the tough moments, let’s go back to one of his interviews from October 2023.
During that interview, Korda spoke about how his father who has also played tennis at a professional level taught him how to stay calm and not to panic in certain nervy moments. “That’s probably one of the biggest things of having a father who played tennis was to kind of understand certain moments. I think in those certain moments you got to stay really calm. You can have such a big lead like that, and you could just completely panic or get super down on yourself and just get lost.” He spoke about how his parents always encouraged him to keep believing in himself no matter what the situation was at that moment.
Sebastian Korda’s father, Petr Korda won the AO in 1998. Sebi reached the QF of the AO in 2023, and that’s his longest run in a Grand Slam tournament. What are his goals surrounding the major event, though? Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles in her career! How many does Korda want to win?
In that same interview, Korda revealed, “I would love to be better than my dad. My ultimate goal in tennis is to win two Grand Slams, one more than my dad. That’s just, you know, little things like that, but I don’t think there’s any pressure.” During a previous interview in 2021, he even claimed that he’s better than his Grand Slam champion dad. Do you think Sebastian Korda really has the potential to win multiple Grand Slam titles?