Tommy Paul, “a week-to-week kind of guy,” moves past a crushing loss to Arthur Fils

HOUSTON—“I’m very much a week-to-week kind of guy,” Tommy Paul tells me, and for his sake, that’s a good thing.

Last week, in the quarterfinals of the Miami Open, Paul held all 18 of his service games and won more points than his opponent, 115 to 114. He was more aggressive than usual and handled the night-match setting on stadium court like someone born for the marquee. He carried out his game plan brilliantly and, in doing so, earned four (consecutive) match points.

He lost the match.

In this rare three-set epic—and one of the best matches I’ve watched, period—Arthur Fils somehow escaped Paul, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (6).

“You’ve got to have amnesia in this sport to be able to play at a high level,” said Frances Tiafoe, Paul’s practice partner on Monday. “Any week can kind of turn the page to then do something great.

“At the end of the day, super tough loss for TP, but it’s quarterfinals of a 1000...there’s guys struggling much more. He’s doing fine, he’s a hell of a player—he’s gonna be ready to go for this week.”

Just tennis, you know. It’s one of those sports that you only get a couple of opportunities sometimes, and sometimes you don’t do anything wrong. Tommy Paul

As a new week on the ATP Tour gets underway, Paul was asked about his decision to come to Houston after a busy March. But there was really no decision: he never likes to skip the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, opting to stay closer to home before heading to Europe.

Not that Paul is averse to the continent’s prevailing surface.

“That was basically all I grew up playing on until I was 13,” says Paul, who developed a taste for clay at a North Carolina tennis club.

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After his improbable defeat, Paul was crestfallen. He opted not to do media in Miami, but with some time to reflect, here’s what Paul told TENNIS.com about it in Houston:

“I mean, I think we both played pretty well. I think I put myself in a pretty good position there at the end of the match. Obviously, he started playing pretty aggressive when he got down a few match points. I think he kind of got the mindset of, ‘All right, back’s against the wall, I’m just gonna go for it now.’ And it worked out for him, and sometimes that’s how it goes.”

After saving a Fils match point at 5-6 in the third set, Paul led the 21-year-old Frenchman 6-2 in the deciding tiebreak. Fils blasted a backhand to save the first match point, and turned defense into offense to save the second (Paul could scarcely have played this point better). When Paul overcooked a forehand during a rally on the third match point—his second straight point on serve—you could sense things were changing. An unreturned Fils bomb serve confirmed that jarring momentum shift.

“I can’t blame myself too much,” reflected Paul. “I don’t think I played too many of the points, the match points, poorly, Just tennis, you know. It’s one of those sports that you only get a couple of opportunities sometimes, and sometimes you don’t do anything wrong.

“I mean, I got to sleep in my own bed that night, which is something that we don’t normally get. So I got that at least.”

That last remark is straight out of a silver linings playbook—appropriate for this rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan. The change in surface should help Paul move forward. The 28-year-old reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros last year and won an Olympic bronze medal in doubles on clay. Paul is an all-surface threat, with three titles on hard courts and his only 500-level title on grass, but clay seems to arrived at the right time.

Paul’s very first clay-court win, in fact, came at River Oaks. His first match there this year will be against Adolfo Daniel Vallejo, a 6-1, 6-4 winner over Zachary Svajda on Monday.

“He’s going to be an unbelievable test,” said Vallejo of Paul. “I know he plays really good on clay.”

The other way to move past the Miami marathon is to think of the big picture—critical for professional tennis players, since they nearly all lose once each tournament week.

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Paul might be one of the best players who has not won a Masters 1000 title; who knows, maybe that’ll happen on clay. But when I asked Paul for his definitive goals this season, and what success means to him, he paused, then, answered this way:

“I mean, I would love to finish a year back in the Top 10, where I got last year for a hot second. (Paul was inside the Top 10 for seven weeks during 2025, and as high as No. 8.) But I mean, to do that, you gotta win a lot of matches, you gotta win a lot of big matches.”

With Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe and Learner Tien in the Houston draw, big matches are possible this week, and more possibilities exist during the upcoming clay swing Paul has proven ready to tackle.

“Everyone has their goals for the year, but I’m very focused on this week right now,” says Paul. “And if I can do well this week, carrying momentum.

“Tennis is such a momentum sport when you feel like when you’re coming through tough matches and tournaments, it kind of just keeps going, and I think that’s something I’m trying to find right now.”