For Tommy Paul, Arthur Ashe Stadium turned into a spooky house of horrors

NEW YORK—A little after 11:30 on Thursday night, Tommy Paul reached double match point against Nuno Borges.

The fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium—and there were still a healthy number of them—stood and raised their Honey Deuces, ready to celebrate an American victory. One more point for Paul and an ideal evening session would be completed, comfortably before midnight. Earlier, the crowd had helped one of their compatriots, Coco Gauff, triumph over her trials and tribulations. Now they were about to get another U.S. star across the finish line.

Up to that point, the Paul-Borges match had offered just the right blend of rapid-fire rallies and competitive tension. Borges, a clean-hitting native of Portugal, had gone up a break early in the third set, but now he seemed to have come to the end of the line. The script had been followed to a T.

But there was still one slight problem with that script: Borges was serving. And he used two first serves to quickly erase both match points; Paul didn’t get either return over the net. Two more strong points from Borges and the score was 5-5, back to square one. The fans sat back down.

And they sat. And sat. And those who didn’t leave when the match eventually went to a fifth set, sat some more. For the next two hours and 10 minutes, Ashe slowly turned into a house of horrors for Paul. Instead of the roars of thousands of people, what he mostly heard were eerie, echoing shouts and cries from the stadium’s rafters. Paul’s own player box grew quiet as well. Late in the fourth set, when he was flailing and searching in vain for a solution, Paul’s own coach, Brad Stine, told him to “stop acting like a baby.”

In fairness, it was probably hard for him to act any other way. Time after time, Paul gained a lead and looked ready to close out the 41st-ranked Borges. Time after time, the crowd rose to its feet in anticipation. Time after time, his stubborn opponent put his head back down and reeled him back in.

Instead of the roars of thousands of people, what he mostly heard were eerie, echoing shouts and cries from the stadium’s rafters.

By the fifth, win or lose, Borges had made a new name for himself among U.S. fans, and likely in the locker room. His strokes aren’t flowing or graceful, but he was making ultra-clean contact with the ball. Borges’ one career title came on clay—he beat an aging Rafael Nadal in the Spaniard’s last tour final—but last night he fed off the quick hard court and the pace that Paul gave him, and he took the attack to the American. Borges came to net 20 more times than Paul, and won 69 percent of those points.

The atmosphere, from an American perspective, was nightmarish. But the level of tennis, and the physicality, stayed high throughout the match’s four hours and 25 minutes. Paul and Borges both appeared ready to cramp at times, but soldiered on.

The first peak came late in the fifth, when Borges sprinted for a short ball and angled it back, just a few inches from the net. It looked like he had the point won, until Paul came barreling out of nowhere to scrape the ball off the court and win the point:

The second, and final, peak came when Paul reached match point again, more than two hours after his last one. Again, Borges was serving, and again he went on the attack, charging the net and making a strong first volley. Paul did his best to stay alive, and Borges’ second volley clipped the tape and landed near the net. Again, Paul barreled forward and angled the ball back. Borges poked it down the line, and Paul raced to the baseline, where he let loose with a forehand pass. Finally, Borges didn’t have the answer. His volley popped up and landed on his side of the net. Paul had survived his house of horrors, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 5-7, 5-7, 7-5, at 1:46 A.M.

All photographs from Matt Fitzgerald.

“I’m a little bit tired, I think we all are,” Paul said a few minutes later, as Borges walked off in his socks. “Thank you guys so much for staying so late in the night and supporting me. I don’t know if I would have got that win without you guys.”

“Especially when you’re up two sets to love, you never wanna lose a match like that.”

After his on-court interview, Paul walked slowly back to his chair. I wondered if they would force him to hit the traditional, celebratory three balls into the crowd. Thankfully, no one seemed to even consider it. The last thing Tommy Paul needed at that moment was to take another swing.