Sebastian Korda was close to winning a trophy at the 2023 Astana Open, but he was ultimately bested by Adrian Mannarino from France.
Korda played a couple of finals so far, but he didn't really do that well. One of those happened earlier this year in Adelaide, where Novak Djokovic bested him. He got another chance in Astana against Adrian Mannarino, but once again, his opponent proved to be the better player.
This result in Kazakhstan's capital comes after a solid outing last week in Zhuhai, though he didn't book the final there. The conditions here suit Korda well despite being somewhat slow for a hard court. The ball doesn't bounce high, which works well with his flat groundstrokes.
The serve did a lot of damage all week long and did so in the final as well. Mannarino played in a final here before but lost that one easily. This one remained somewhat competitive but outside of two early break points he didn't do much on return.
Korda was very dominant, hitting five aces and losing only 3 points behind the serve in the first set. Mannarino ran into some issues late at 4-4, losing his serve, and Korda finished it after the next game. The second set was very similar, as Mannarino once again ran into some issues in one of his games and immediately got broken.
He would break back to make it 3-3 and actually outplayed Korda even more down the stretch to win the second set 6-3. The American simply became too erratic which can happen due to the streaky nature of his style.
Mannarino continued good play in the final set, taking an early break and holding it for the 4-2 lead. The momentum completely shifted by this point, and Mannarino finished it off with another break. The final score was 4-6 6-3 6-2 for Mannarino, who denied Korda a 2nd career trophy.
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