On the eve of the French Open, 20-year-old American Sebastian Korda scored a career breakthrough when he beat Italian Marco Cecchinato, 6-2, 6-4, in Parma for a first title.

Korda, the son of former world No. 2 and Australian Open winner Petr Korda, had reached just one ATP Tour final before the Parma event.

Cecchinato, who won all three of his titles on clay, comes from Brescia, 90 kilometres from Parma.

The fans allowed into the first-time event threw their support behind the local boy.

“Today I played a really tough opponent and the crowd wasn’t easy,” Korda said. “They kept cheering him on, but I’m really proud of myself and how I handled it.”

Although his father is Czech, Sebastian Korda, who was born in Florida, chose to represent the US.

Saturday’s victory made him the first American player to win a clay court tournament since Sam Querrey in Belgrade 11 years ago.

“This is something that I’ve dreamed of,” Korda said, adding that he had expected to win a title sooner. He finished runner-up at an event in Florida in January.

“I really thought I was going to get it done in Delray Beach, and I was a little heartbroken.”

“But I stayed positive, even with such a bad first part of the clay-court season,” he said. “I took a couple of days off, recharged my batteries, and had a really good practice week in Prague with my dad and my coach,” said Korda.

Korda plays Pedro Martinez in the first round at Roland Garros where his father reached the final in 1992 losing to Jim Courier.

He reached the last 16 last year on his main-draw debut in Paris before succumbing to eventual champion Rafael Nadal.

Chelsea won the Champions League for the second time as a Kai Havertz goal secured a tense 1-0 victory over Manchester City in Saturday’s final in Porto, shattering Pep Guardiola’s dream of lifting the trophy for the third time, a decade on from his last triumph.

Havertz rounded Ederson to score three minutes before half-time at the Estadio do Dragao and the Chelsea players ran to the far end of the pitch to celebrate with the German.

Coach Thomas Tuchel, full of energy on the touchline just like his opposite number, punched the air in celebration, and later jumped with joy on the pitch after Chelsea held on for victory in the second half as City lost distraught skipper Kevin De Bruyne to injury.

The London club may have finished fourth in the Premier League, a huge 19 points behind the champions City, but this, remarkably, was their third win over Guardiola’s side in six weeks.

They shattered City’s hopes of a domestic treble when they triumphed in the FA Cup semi-finals in April and then delayed their title celebrations with victory in Manchester.

Now, in a final watched by a limited crowd of just over 14,000 fans who created a raucous atmosphere, they have denied City the first Champions League crown they and Guardiola so crave.

• Abramovich’s second European Cup –
  City have had to wait 13 years since being taken over by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour just to get to the Champions League final.

They are now the seventh consecutive team to lose in their first appearance at this stage. The same misfortune befell Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain last year as well as Tottenham Hotspur when they were beaten by Liverpool in the last all-English final in 2019.

Chelsea also lost when they first got to the final, succumbing on penalties against Manchester United in Moscow in 2008.

They overcame the final hurdle by beating Bayern Munich, also in a shoot-out, in 2012 and now they have their second European Cup to move level with Juventus, Benfica and Porto as well as another English side, Nottingham Forest.

Their transformation into one of Europe’s super clubs has been down to the riches of Roman Abramovich, their Russian oligarch owner who was in attendance at the game in Portugal.

Chelsea have been transformed since the appointment as coach in January of Tuchel, but City were still the favourites off the back of their third Premier League title triumph in four seasons.

Feeding off the energy of the crowd in a stadium that Portuguese authorities had allowed to be filled to a third of its capacity — all fans required negative Covid-19 tests to gain entry — both teams played with a level of intensity rarely seen in the last year of football in empty grounds.

• Havertz’s marquee moment –
  City pressed high but struggled to trouble Edouard Mendy in the Chelsea goal, while at the other end Timo Werner should have done better than shoot straight at Ederson in the 14th minute.

Chelsea then suffered an injury blow as an emotional Thiago Silva was forced off hurt, Andreas Christensen taking the Brazilian’s place in central defence.

Yet it was they who opened the scoring in the 42nd minute, Mason Mount’s ball splitting the City defence with John Stones out of position, allowing Havertz — their marquee 71 million-pound ($100m) signing last summer — to go around the lunging Ederson and convert into an empty net.

City now needed to break down a Chelsea defence that has been exceptional since Tuchel came in.

But they lost De Bruyne just before the hour mark, the brilliant Belgian taken out in a collision with Antonio Ruediger that appeared to leave him concussed.

He came off in tears, and Guardiola instead turned to Sergio Aguero for the latter stages, but there was to be no glorious send-off as a City player for the Argentine, even if a Riyad Mahrez shot sailed just over in the sixth minute of injury time.

There was also no third European Cup for Guardiola, who remains one adrift of the record for the coaches with most wins in the competition, held jointly by Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane.

Austrian defender David Alaba will join Real Madrid on a five-year contract after leaving Bayern Munich, the Spanish giants confirmed on Friday.

The announcement of the signing of the 28-year-old, who had also been linked with several English Premier League clubs, comes a day after Zinedine Zidane quit as Real coach.

“Real Madrid has reached an agreement with David Alaba, who will be linked to the club for the next five seasons,” Madrid said in a statement.

Alaba will be presented as a Real player after Euro 2020, the statement added.

The Austria international has been hugely successful at Bayern, having won two Champions League trophies and 10 league titles among other silverware.

Alaba had said in February that he would leave Bayern when his contract expires at the end of the season after 13 years with the German club.

Alaba and Bayern were in talks about a new contract but the club said in November 2020 that the negotiations had broken down, reportedly over the player’s salary.

Alaba has made over 400 appearances for Bayern Munich since 2010, winning 27 honours including ten Bundesliga titles and the UEFA Champions League in 2013 and 2020.

He was voted Austrian Footballer of the Year on seven occasions (including six consecutive times from 2011 to 2016), and named in the UEFA Team of the Year three times.