Sebastian Korda has become the first-ever American to reach the Shanghai Masters semi-final, which is quite a stat.
Plenty of legendary American players have played in the past, but it mostly comes down to the fact that the Shanghai Masters is not a longstanding event. It was played for the first time only in 2009, so the list of great American players is much shorter than the full list of American legends.
Korda bested performances by Andy Roddick and Jack Sock, two really good players, especially the former, who was number one in the world as well as Grand Slam champion in singles, compared to Sock, who has a few Grand Slam doubles trophies.
Both of them only made it to the quarter-finals, Roddick in 2011 and Sock in 2016, which makes Korda's run to the semi-final the best run by an American at the ATP 1000 event in Shanghai. Funnily enough, he faced a compatriot in Ben Shelton in the quarter-final, who narrowly missed out on the chance to hold this milestone. It's a pretty cool one but mostly comes down to the short history of the event.
When it comes to Korda himself, it's a great result because he's been playing really solid tennis for a few weeks now. He played in the Zhuhai semi-finals, losing to Khachanov, and then made it to the Astana Open final, where Mannarino beat him.
This last run allows him to fight for the biggest final of his career and judging by how he plays, it could really happen. He's facing Hubert Hurkacz for a spot in the final, and it's actually a matchup he won earlier this year in rather similar conditions in Melbourne.
We'll see if he can continue his stellar run and better this milestone that he set. Perhaps he goes all the way and then it would be a really cool milestone to have.
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