{"id":19237,"date":"2024-06-15T12:03:42","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T10:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=19237"},"modified":"2024-06-15T12:03:42","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T10:03:42","slug":"interview-korda-its-good-to-be-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/2024\/06\/15\/interview-korda-its-good-to-be-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview Korda: &#8216;It&#8217;s good to be here&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Korda&#8217;s name has been well known in tennis circles for decades. His father Petr was a Grand Slam champion and his son is also aiming for the very top. His sisters are also top golfers, so it&#8217;s not surprising that Sebastian Korda speaks passionately about all kinds of sports.<\/p><p><strong>You are here for the first time and are immediately in the semi-finals. To what do you owe that?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;I came early and was able to prepare well. There are many courts here so you can train often, which is very nice. In the competitions, I achieved a high level so I&#8217;m happy with how it&#8217;s all going.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>You are in the Netherlands for the second time this year, after your participation in Rotterdam. Had you ever been to the country before that?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;No, I hadn&#8217;t. I can say in all honesty that the people are very nice. Living here is good, although I wouldn&#8217;t mind the sun breaking through once in a while.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>You now face Tallon Griekspoor, the defending champion. How do you feel about his qualities?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;We have coincidentally been training here regularly. He can play well on grass, helped by a powerful serve and both a solid forehand and backhand. Moreover, he likes to come to the net. So it will be quite a challenge for me. But one I am looking forward to, because playing against such an opponent also helps me get better on grass.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>What do you feel every year when you are on a grass court for the first time?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;I prefer faster courts. So to switch from gravel to grass gives me a nice feeling, although you always have to get used to how to play on this surface. It also brings a lot of muscle pain the first few days, because suddenly you are so much lower to the ground for your strokes.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>What is the best thing that has happened to you this year off the tennis court?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;The fact that my wrist no longer bothers me. That seriously bothered me for a year and a half, which also made me feel uncomfortable outside the court. It also caused me restrictions in everyday life, with simple things like opening a bottle, for example.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>If you could live at any other time in history, when would that be?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;In ancient Egypt. I would love to see for myself how they built those pyramids. That&#8217;s something I&#8217;ve often wondered about, I&#8217;m very curious about that.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>Did you have an obsession as a child?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;Of everything with sports. When I was growing up, besides tennis, I did ice hockey, golf, taekwondo, among other things. I wanted to try out a lot. Fortunately, my parents gave me plenty of room for this. They also never pushed me towards tennis.&#8217;<\/p><p><strong>Suppose, when the sun breaks through once, you get to organise a cosy barbecue here. Which three guests should not be missed?<\/strong><br \/>&#8216;Good music is a must and since we are in the Netherlands my choice falls on Martin Garrix. I&#8217;m also a serious fan of his, though. Since I really like ice hockey, I would like Sidney Crosby as a guest and with Andre Agassi joining us, we will have a fantastic storyteller. It doesn&#8217;t matter what Andre starts talking about, he can always bring it wonderfully and takes you completely into his stories.&#8217;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Korda&#8217;s name has been well known in tennis circles for decades. His father Petr was a Grand Slam champion and his son is also aiming for the very top. His sisters are also top golfers, so it&#8217;s not surprising that Sebastian Korda speaks passionately about all kinds of sports.You are here for the first time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19237\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=19237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19237\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19238,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19237\/revisions\/19238\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19231\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=19237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=19237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=19237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}