Greatness runs in Sebastian Korda’s blood. His father Petr won the Australian Open in 1998, and his mother Regina was top 30 on the women’s tour. Further, his sisters are both professional golfers.
The youngest of the Korda family has some high expectations on his shoulders, especially after winning the Australian Open juniors in 2018.
He’s got a lanky, nearly 2 meter frame and big power off both wings to boot. He can grind from the baseline or take the ball on early and transition forward.
With more than adequate volleys and touch for today’s game backed by huge groundstrokes and a dependable serve, Korda’s all court game is suited perfectly by his racquet, the Wilson Blade 98.
- Endorsed Racquet: Wilson Blade 98
- Actual Racquet: Wilson Blade 98 Pro Stock
- Strings: Luxilon ALU Power 125 and ALU Power 120 Crosses
Which Blade is It?
It is fairly easy to see that Korda’s Blade is not one of the newer versions, though it is painted like the current V8.
We can see from close-up pictures that his frame lacks the large “parallel drilling” grommets throughout the frame (only at the corners on v4/BLX and previous) and has “Wilson” on the bumper guard which is indicative of older Blade grommet sets.
There is no good way to distinguish the first four versions of the blade without knowing from Wilson directly which ones they are (the nBlade has the lowest RA and highest stock swingweight on average, but we can’t exactly toss Seb’s racquets on an RDC for ourselves).
As we can see, Sebastian customizes his racquets with lead tape in the throat and the hoop. He may have a little tucked under the bumper too.
He also reportedly uses a leather grip – it looks that way from the definitions of his handle in pictures too. His unstrung specs are 324g, 31.5 cm balance, and 306 swingweight. That equates to about 340g, 32.5 cm balance, and 340 swingweight all strung up.
Korda uses Luxilon ALU Power 125 mains and ALU Power 120 crosses. These specs allow the Blade 18×20 a bit of extra mass.
Many players will say that heavier frames tend to be more dependable under pressure, and though adding mass slows your swing down, a professional like Korda can handle 340 grams easily.
He gets a bit more dependability for his all court game, and the racquet should be a bit better for stability and maneuverability volleys with modifications to the balance and mass.
Experimenting?
Recently, Sebastian was spotted with a blacked out racquet after the US Open. It appears to still be a Wilson Blade 98 mold but with an 18×19 string pattern.
We still see his lead tape in the throat and at 3 and 9 o’clock in the hoop along with a silver string that we should assume to be ALU Power in his usual setup.
So, he is likely just testing the new string pattern. Interestingly enough, Korda has worked with Agassi in the past who has been a fan of the 18×19 string pattern: Novak Djokovic’s switch to this configuration happened during his time with Agassi too.
Whether this is just a trial or something that he tests for a while remains to be seen, but he seems to be having good results with it, reaching the semifinals of the Gijon Open at the time of this article. Here’s hoping the big guy can keep improving and live up to his heavily weighted potential!
If you’re interested in other ATP players’ racquets, I listed all the top 100 players’ racquets in this post.