Sebastian Korda made a winning return at the 2023 Cinch Championships at the Queen's Club in London beating native player Daniel Evans in two sets 6-4 7-5.
Evans has generally been a fair performer on grass in his career but he's not playing that well this year and this match once again wasn't anything special. Korda has missed a lot of time this year due to injuries but the American made a good start in Queen's.
For the first few games, we saw both players hold their serve relatively easily with a few good rallies in there. Korda made the first step by breaking Evans midway through the first set to take a lead which he held for the rest of the set.
It's really good to see Korda playing tennis again because he's one of the most talented players of his generation according to long-time legendary coach Rick Macci. He was truly spectacular in the first set losing only one point behind his first serve with 9 aces. Such a level is very hard to beat on grass and Evans struggled greatly against it.
The second set saw the Brit control his service games a bit better not allowing too much though Korda still found solutions at times. The problem for the American this time around was his inability to take advantage of those chances as Evans saved them.
This Wimbledon stretch will be huge for Korda who has made additions to his coaching team ahead of his return. The start of the year was excellent but then injuries happened and now he needs to work his way to that level with the US Open stretch certainly a good time to do that. For now, he was able to finish off this match by keeping it in two sets.
Patrick McEnroe praised Korda after the Australian Open noting that he's a great fit on the grass where he can be dangerous to anybody. If he brings this level consistently that's certainly the truth.
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