Tommy Paul triumphs in all-American clash with Jenson Brooksby to kick off Cincy campaign

WATCH: Paul is fresh off his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal, where he endured a narrow defeat to Dan Evans.

Tommy Paul continued his impressive summer surge at the Western & Southern Open on Tuesday with a 6-3, 6-2 win over fellow American Jenson Brooksby.

Paul was fresh off a bittersweet result at the Omnium Banque Nationale, where he reached the quarterfinals but endured a tough defeat to Dan Evans from a set up. Setting aside that disappointment, he ultimately carried positive vibes to Cincinnati and defeated his talented countryman in just under 70 minutes on Court 3.

This time last year, Brooksby was the young American with all the buzz heading into the US Open: then just 20 years old, Brooksby had just reached his first ATP final in Newport and went on to play an entertaining four-setter against Novak Djokovic in Flushing Meadows.

Though he has reached two more finals in 2022—including one in Atlanta to start the US Open swing—his momentum had considerably cooled since making back-to-back fourth-round appearances at the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open, going 5-8 on clay and grass.

Paul, by contrast, has been one of the stories of the summer. After long lagging behind contemporaries like Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka, the former French Open junior champion began by making a pair of grass-court quarterfinals ahead of his long-awaited Wimbledon debut—where he reached the fourth round—and enjoyed a first Masters 1000 quarterfinal in Montréal with wins over Carlos Alcaraz and Marin Cilic.

Taking on Brooksby for the first time, he scored the lone break of the opening set and served it out at love, dominating the crafty youngster with his booming forehand and striking 11 winners in total.

The second set proved more of the same as Paul nabbed a 0-40 lead in the fifth game, breaking on his third opportunity. An insurance break put him a game away from victory and only made the 25-year-old more relaxed off the ground as he secured victory on his first match point.

Ending the match with a total 21 winners over two sets, Paul advanced into the second round without facing a break point on serve. Drawn in a section with top seed Daniil Medvedev, the unseeded American will next take on a slumping Denis Shapovalov, who has only won two of his last 11 matches, though he scored a straight-set win against Grigor Dimitrov on Monday.

The pair last played on grass earlier this summer at Queen’s Club, where Paul defeated Shapovalov in three sets.