Stream this match live on TennisChannel.com Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET.
I had a sense this week that the normally laid back Tommy Paul was playing with a little more urgency than usual. Now we know why. His Ford F-150 truck was repossessed back in Florida because he missed “a couple of payments.”
“I’ve been grinding to get my truck back,” Paul said with a laugh on Thursday. “If you know me, that’s my baby. Yeah, really grinding to get that back.”
“I had to win a couple matches so I could pay that off.”
Paul says that he’s square now, and that his trainer is going to get the truck for him. Does that mean his motivation will wane? He’ll need all of it if he’s going to stand a chance against Sinner. And he knows it.
“I’ve been watching him play this week,” Paul said of Sinner. “It’s been fun to watch. Doesn’t feel like he’s rusty very much at all.”
Paul said those words before Sinner went out and hammered—there’s really no other word for it—Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in 63 minutes in their quarterfinal. Sinner slugged away at will, yet never looked as if was taking any risks. His shot-making was as clean, if not cleaner, than it has ever been. Afterward, even he couldn’t deny his brilliance.
“I was feeling great on the court, I think we all saw that,” Sinner said.
Can he maintain that feeling for another round? It might not be as simple as he made it appear against Ruud. Sinner leads Paul 3-1, but the matches have been close; four of their sets have gone to tiebreakers, and Paul almost won when they met on clay in Madrid a few years back.
Paul will have more firepower than Ruud to deal with the Sinner onslaught, and if anyone can find his shots, it’s the ultra-athletic American. But given what we witnessed on Thursday, I don’t think anyone can pick against Sinner. Paul will have to hope he peaked too early. Winner: Sinner.