Tommy Paul (tennis)

Tommy Paul (born May 17, 1997 in Voorhees Township, New Jersey) is an American professional tennis player. Paul has a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 51 achieved on 8 March 2021.

Paul won the 2015 French Open boys’ singles title by defeating fellow American Taylor Fritz. He also reached the final at the 2015 US Open boys’ singles, losing to Fritz. Paul was a quarterfinalist at the 2017 Citi Open, an ATP 500 tournament, before losing to Kei Nishikori.

Junior career

Tommy Paul has always been one of the highest ranked juniors of his class. Paul reached a career-high ITF junior rank of No. 3 on December 9, 2015.

Paul reached two junior Grand Slam finals in 2015. He won the 2015 French Open boys’ singles title by defeating fellow American Taylor Fritz in the final in three sets. He also reached the final at the 2015 US Open boy’s singles, this time losing to Fritz in three sets.

Professional

Paul turned pro in 2015. Unusually for an American, Paul has shown a preference for playing on clay, having won the Junior French Open and his first four ITF Futures singles titles on clay. He qualified for the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time at the 2015 US Open, losing to Andreas Seppi in the first round.

In March 2016, Paul cracked the Top 200 for the first time by qualifying for the Miami Masters. In April, Paul was awarded a wild card into the 2016 U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships at Houston, and defeated 53rd-ranked Paolo Lorenzi in the 1st round for his first career ATP level win.

Paul would then mainly compete on the ATP Challenger circuit and ITF circuit for the remainder of 2016 and early 2017.

In July 2017, after going through qualifying at the Atlanta Open, he defeated seventh seed and 53rd-ranked Chung Hyeon in three sets. He then went on to defeat Malek Jaziri in three sets to advance to his first ATP tour-level quarterfinal. Then he was defeated by third seed Gilles Müller. Following his performance in Atlanta, Tommy was awarded a wildcard into the ATP 500 Washington Open. Paul defeated Casper Ruud to advance to the second round. He then played Lucas Pouille and achieved the biggest win of his career, defeating the Frenchman in straight sets. In the next round, he faced Gilles Müller again, but this time came out on top in three sets to reach his first ATP 500 quarterfinal. There he faced Kei Nishikori and lost in three sets.

In September 2019, Paul broke into the top 100 for the first time in his career having won his second ATP Challenger title of the year in New Haven, after winning in Sarasota earlier in the season.

Playing style

Paul possesses a strong attacking forehand and solid footwork along the baseline and speed coming into net, attributes that have allowed him success on clay surfaces.

Paul is currently coached by Brad Stine.

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 2 (1–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Winner	2015	French Open	Clay	Taylor Fritz	7–6(7–4), 2–6, 6–2
Runner-up	2015	US Open	Hard	Taylor Fritz	2–6, 7–6(7–4), 2–6

Doubles: 1 (0–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	2015	French Open	Clay	William Blumberg	Álvaro López San Martín  Jaume Munar	4–6, 2–6

Challenger and Futures finals

Singles: 15 (10–5)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1–0	May 2015	Spain F13, Valldoreix	Futures	Clay	Albert Alcaraz Ivorra	2–6, 6–4, 6–4
Win	2–0	May 2015	Italy F11, Lecco	Futures	Clay	Lorenzo Sonego	6–1, 6–4
Loss	2–1	Nov 2015	Charlottesville, USA	Challenger	Hard (i)	Noah Rubin	6–3, 6–7(7–9), 3–6
Win	3–1	Jan 2016	USA F3, Plantation	Futures	Clay	Adrien Puget	7–6(7–4), 6–0
Win	4–1	Jan 2016	USA F4, Sunrise	Futures	Clay	Adrien Puget	6–4, 3–6, 6–3
Win	5–1	Feb 2017	USA F6, Palm Coast	Futures	Clay	Renta Tokuda	6–3, 4–6, 6–3
Loss	5–2	Mar 2017	USA F9, Orlando	Futures	Clay	Dominik Köpfer	6–4, 3–6, 5–7
Win	6–2	Jun 2017	USA F19, Winston-Salem	Futures	Hard	Christopher Eubanks	6–4, 6–4
Loss	6–3	Jul 2017	USA F21, Tulsa	Futures	Hard	Christian Harrison	6–3, 2–6, 1–6
Loss	6–4	Jun 2018	USA F15, Winston-Salem	Futures	Hard	Michael Redlicki	3–6, 6–3, 1–6
Win	7–4	Nov 2018	Charlottesville, USA	Challenger	Hard (i)	Peter Polansky	6–2, 6–2
Win	8–4	Apr 2019	Sarasota, USA	Challenger	Clay	Tennys Sandgren	6–3, 6–4
Loss	8–5	Apr 2019	Tallahassee, USA	Challenger	Clay	Emilio Gomez	2–6, 2–6
Win	9–5	Sep 2019	New Haven, USA	Challenger	Hard	Marcos Giron	6–3, 6–3
Win	10–5	Sep 2019	Tiburon, USA	Challenger	Hard	Thanasi Kokkinakis	7–5, 6–7(3–7), 6–4

Doubles: 3 (2–1)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Jul 2017	USA F21, Tulsa	Futures	Hard	Nathan Ponwith	Austin Krajicek  Jackson Withrow	4–6, 2–6
Win	1–1	Jan 2018	Playford, Australia	Challenger	Hard	Mackenzie McDonald	Maverick Banes  Jason Kubler	7–6(7–4), 6–4
Win	2–1	Sep 2018	Columbus, USA	Challenger	Hard (i)	Peter Polansky	Gonzalo Escobar  Roberto Quiroz	6–3, 6–3

Performance timeline

Singles

Current through the 2021 Sardegna Open

Doubles

Wins over top 10 players

#	Player	Rank	Event	Surface	Rd	Score	TP Rank
2020
1.	Alexander Zverev	No. 7	Acapulco, Mexico	Hard	2nd Round	6–3, 6–4	No. 66