Sebastian Korda battled past Francisco Cerundolo 7-5 7-6 (8-6) to reach his second Masters 1000 quarter final at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
Korda backed up the biggest win of his career against Danil Medvedev in the third round of this year’s edition of the Shanghai tournament.
Both players went on serve until the 12th game when Korda earned his first break to close out the first set 7-5.
Korda went up a set and a break in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead. The US player held on his next two service game to build up a 5-2 lead, but he was not able to serve out the match at 5-3, as Cerundolo broke back in the ninth game for 4-5. The Argentine player held serve to 30 to draw level to 5-5.
Cerundolo won five consecutive points from 0-2 down to forge a 5-2 lead in the tie-break and held a set point at 6-5. Korda won six of the final seven points from 2-5 down to close out the tie-break 8-6 after 1 hour and 40 minutes. “I am very happy. I served for it in the second set, I did not play my best game, but he really raised his level and played incredible tennis. I am super happy with the way I played in the tie-break. I stayed calm when he was calm when he was a couple of mini-breaks up and I am just happy with how I played overall”, said Korda.
