Tommy Paul, a very good tennis player but peculiar due to his apparently indolent and distracted behavior on the court, is also curious when he speaks outside of it and usually does not mince his words when it comes to answering certain questions honestly.
In the press conference after his resounding victory on Saturday in Shanghai against the Austrian Sebastian Ofner (6-3 and 6-0), the 26-year-old American and world number 12 spoke about the tennis situation in his country and was very clear. “Many people would say that it was about time or that it took us too long to get there. But tennis is a tough sport and is probably the 20th most popular in the United States. Nobody cares and we had two people in the Top-10 (Taylor Fritz (still 7th) and Frances Tiafoe (now 13th). So it’s great that we are at the top. All of our best athletes are dedicated to other sports, so That’s our excuse, I guess.”
Paul, however, acknowledged that the sport of racquet “is growing a lot” in his nation thanks to the last US Open, when American tennis players were quite successful, with four representatives in the round of 16 (Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, Paul and Fritz). “Hopefully, we can get more kids playing tennis in the United States and watching it. At this year’s US Open he made a big difference. I think people there like winners, so the better the Americans do, the more they want to go out. It’s exciting and in the future, I think everyone is going to be very excited about it.”
Ten in the Top-100
Currently, there are ten Americans in the Top-100: Fritz (7), Paul (12), Tiafoe (13), Shelton (20), Sebastian Korda (26), Christopher Eubanks (32), Mackenzie McDonald (38), JJ Wolf (51), Marcos Giron (80) and Michael Mmoh (86).
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2023-10-08 16:13:58
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