The 20-year-old son of an Australian Open champion and a Polish young gun on the rise will meet in the final of the ATP Tour’s Delray Beach Open in Florida.
Former world No.1 junior Sebastian Korda defeated Cameron Norrie of Britain 6-3 7-5 to seal a spot in his maiden final on the main tour.
Korda’s father is Petr Korda, the 1998 major champion at Melbourne Park.
After two early exits in his previous appearances in Delray Beach, Korda showed why he is touted as one of America’s brightest tennis talents by backing up his quarter-final win over second-seeded John Isner with victory over Norrie.
Although he squandered two match points serving at 5-4 in the second set, Korda made no mistake when given another chance to close out the match two games later.
Earlier, Hubert Hurkacz advanced to his second career ATP Tour final by beating American qualifier Christian Harrison.
The fourth-seeded Hurkacz ended the fairytale run of world No.789 Christian Harrison with a 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 victory in their last-four showdown.
Hurkacz’s only other final was in 2019, when he won at Winston-Salem to become the second Polish tour-level champion in the Open era.
The world No.35 will rise up the rankings after his week in Florida and could earn a seeding for next month’s Australian Open.
That would allow him to avoid facing the leading title contenders, like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, in the opening round at Melbourne Park, he noted.
“Obviously it’s a step forward and I want to be playing better and better,” Hurkacz said.
“It’s a great start of the year.”
Harrison, 26, was playing in his first main-tour semi-final of a career that has been slowed by injuries that required surgery eight times.
Despite his defeat to Hurkacz, Harrison will soar more than 400 spots in the rankings to 345th when they are next updated.
“Very happy to win this match today,” Hurkacz said in his on-court interview.
“Christian played pretty amazing throughout the whole tournament.
“He qualified here and had his best results on the ATP Tour.
“Especially after all he came through, all the surgeries, it’s really great for him.”
