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Czech Petr Korda won the event in 1992.
"I've been coming to this tournament since I was a teenager. My
dad used to coach Radek Stepanek, who also won here in 2011,"
said American Korda, who is now coached by Stepanek.
"We have a lot of history with this tournament. One of my
biggest goals was one day coming here and hopefully winning the
tournament and putting my name up there on the stadium.
"This is probably the most special moment of my career so far."
Victory also ensured Korda became the first U.S. man to win the
Washington crown since Andy Roddick in 2007, as he gears up for
the U.S. Open beginning on Aug. 26.
Korda is among a group of U.S. men looking to end the country's
21-year Grand Slam drought since Roddick's triumph at his home
Grand Slam, and he said there was "healthy jealousy" between
them.
"When someone does a great result, the other guys want to do an
even better one," said Korda, who reached a career-high world
number 18 on Monday.
"It's really great that all the Americans are close. All the
Americans are playing really great tennis right now. Hopefully
we can make a big push in the coming Grand Slam soon." (This
story has been refiled to change the word 'hit' to 'his' in
paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter
Rutherford) [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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