Sights of Paris - Roland Garros

It wasn’t a packed house, but there was certainly an audience. Just five rows deep, the stands were about 40% full. As expected, most of the fans were rooting for the Frenchman, Valentin Royer. The sun was starting to reach a level where it was in the faces of one side of the small stadium. The other side was slightly shaded by a bigger stadium right next to it. The court was reflecting orange to bright that it even shined off of the shoes of the players before us. The other player? An American. A future legend and soon to be one of the all-time greats.

Sebastian. Korda.

There’s no doubt in my mind that he has what it takes. As we sat there for the second set, he got down a little bit. Never did we see any negative emotions come out of him. Even when Royer would go on a strong stretch and yell “Let’s go!” did Korda ever worry. You could see he just wanted to get it back. He did just that. The sweat dripped off of his nose and onto the court below him. He served the ball and it rocketed across our line of vision. A backhand followed a backhand. Then a forehand shot that felt like it had some kind of anger behind it blew by Royer’s body. We jumped up and cheered. Sebastian had done it. He defeated Valentin Royer and won the match. But we shouldn’t be surprised. This 17 year old Floridian has got a lot of winning ahead of him.