How Good Is Tommy Paul, Really?...

Talent a single word that sums up Excellence technique and a player's potential to Rise Above the Rest this single word has been a subject of debate among fans for various reasons some fans prioritize natural athletic capabilities While others look at how refined your ground strokes volleys and Net game are and a few others look for something else entirely different but what if I told you that a player could tick all the boxes and still be overlooked by thousands of fans out of the dozens of American male tennis players that have popped up in the last decade one man hasn't been talked about as much that man is Tommy Paul what changes has Tommy made to his game and what can we make of his best season on tour so far and what are the intangibles that don't show up in the numbers now I know what you're thinking why are we talking about Tommy Paul seeing that he suffered back-to-back early round losses in Canada and Cincinnati he really shouldn't have lost to those players right well I totally agree with you I'm not reading too much into those losses because he was at the Olympics and the possible effects that it would have had on his preparation for the North American Summer hardcourt swing are pretty significant but putting his entire season into perspective you'll notice that a lot has changed in the last couple months let's rewind a bit and talk about why Paul has been flying under the radar You could argue that everything about him was above average nothing more in other words he didn't have any glaring weaknesses but his strengths were also not top 10 level on the tour on top of that he wasn't really consistent for large stretches either so at the end of the day we saw Paul make gradual progress it wasn't exactly anything headline grabbing but all that changed when he reached the semis at the 2023 Australian Open You could argue that Paul made the most of his draw before running into Novak but he then reached the finals in Acapulco and East and had a couple of big wins before finishing the year inside the top 15 so going into the 2024 season the writing was on the wall that Tommy was going to have a great year after a disappointing loss to catch manovich at the Australian Open Tommy stepped up to the plate and won the next tournament he played in Dallas and then reached the finals in Del Paul was in the form of his life at Indian Wells where he fell just short to Medvedev in the semis but he then suffered a nasty ankle injury that caused him an early exit in Miami not fully recovered he then also had to miss Monte Carlo as well when the clay Court Season rolled around I was honestly skep IAL about Paul's chances of doing anything eye-catching first of all I didn't know how his ankle was going to hold up but an even bigger reason for my skepticism was Paul's terrible track record on Clay he won the Roland garos boys title in 2015 but we all know that doesn't translate to becoming a great clay quarter you can dominate everyone at the junior level and then get ped when you're on to the pros Paul not only had a losing career record on Clay he was also an abysmal 0 and13 against players ranked inside the top 40 on Clay before for Rome but he then flipped the switch with back-to-back top 10 wins against meddev and herkos at the Italian Open although he then lost early in the third round at the French I wasn't too surprised because of his opponent apparently Tommy has a Francisco cundo problem and has lost four of the last five matches he's played against the Argentine Roland garos and Madrid this year on clay and back-to-back losses on the grass last year at eastburn and queens any idea why the cundo matchup is such a problem for Tommy fast forward to the grass qu season this year Paul goes on to win the biggest title of his life at queens before reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon seeing Paul's success on grass and also taking into account what Carlos alcaras has been able to do on the surface I'm willing to say that the serve is just a bit overrated on grass what matters more these days is how well you can move and also how well you can move your opponent Paul and alcarez don't have Elite serves but they move very well and are also able to move their opponents around alcaras has won back-to-back Wimbledon titles despite not having the serve quality of someone like SAS Federer or even Novak for that matter for Paul he had always been comfortable defending from the back of the court but that alone wasn't going to cut it he needed to improve some aspects of his game which we're going to talk about right now Paul's service motion is very fluid and one of the most natural on tour although he's also bumped up his first serve it's the second serve that catches my eye Paul has one of the best kickers on tour definitely a top two top three for me his kick serve was effective on play this season as he's often attacked his opponents on their weaker wings or pulled them wide on the adside and we all know how the ball jumps off the court with a great kicker and by the way Paul's percentage of second serves one is the highest it's been throughout his career with the exception of 2019 and we obviously can't compare the caliber of opponents he was facing back then but that's not the only area of improvement for Tommy he has also used the backhand slice to great effect his already flat backhand stays really low on grass but he now also uses the slice more than ever as a point constructing tool to vary the pace disrupt his opponent's Rhythm and as a setup shot that was a major part of the gameplay against musetti in the final at Queens here's another example of Tommy using the backhand slice to great effect against alcarez at Wimbledon but an even bigger upgrade for Paul has been on the approach shot knowing that he doesn't have the Firepower to beat guys like CER alcaraz and the big guns from the Baseline paulus had to focus on trying to make them uncomfortable in other ways because trust me you aren't beating someone like center from the Baseline so what did Tommy do rather than trying to go for bigger shots he resorted to exploring other tactics by switching up rally patterns and working on his Net game and volleys this has helped him outsmart many players tactically with his coach encouraging him to go forward more now you probably already know how approach shots work you can approach the net with the forehand approach approach to the backhand which is usually considered the best or the backhand approach to the backhand to take time away you could also go forehand to forehand typically if you're expecting a slice and if the opponent is out of position you could simply go down the middle knowing the right decision to make In the Heat of the Moment is something that Tommy has been extremely good at and it's perhaps why he's been winning more points at the net than ever before Tommy's forehand has also seen some upgrades while we already know that he's less of a baseliner than most top guys and wasn't hitting at the same speed and spin like many of the other top 15 players Paul has been playing more aggressively on that Wing the interesting thing to me is that while his somewhat nonchalant takeback and slap motion on the forehand sometimes racks up unforced errors Tommy has been cleaning up on that wing and showing more touch than ever and then we have his footwork which is already Superior to most guys on tour Tommy is light on his feet and is one of the quickest players around but this Improvement didn't just suddenly appear out of the blue Paul's coach Brad Steen has worked on developing Paul's attacking game along with his fitness trainer Franco Herrero real quick you guys may have noticed that over the past few videos we started working with a new sponsor Sucker Punch Sucker Punch is a premium hydration and recovery drink and I've personally been using it on my sessions on court now at this point you guys know me I'm not the kind of Creator who's just going to blindly push products your way but with the Sucker Punch guys I genuinely felt a sense of connection with them and they have a great product too I even use it in one of our upcoming videos this partnership is going to help us expand the channel even more and do a lot more of the content that you guys already know and love plus some new stuff that I'm really excited to share with you anyways thanks to Sucker Punch for sponsoring this video okay back to Tommy Paul you know the stereotype about American men's tennis right big serves aggressive play about as subtle as a sledgehammer but Paul he's actually different from the typical American stereotype he has more layers to his game and can play with a more tactical approach without relying too much on physicality you aren't wrong if you said Tommy shared some similarities with Alex D Manor who I also just made a deep dive about recently I mean they're both fast on the court but really don't have a super weapon to hurt opponents I think Paul's serve is underrated though but just like deor Paul has made marked improvements across the board and at the moment his top 10 entry is a matter of when not if to me taking a look at the stats we see that Tommy's tiebreak win percentage has jumped from 48% to 75% in fact he's only lost three tie breaks all year his hold percentage break percentage Ace rate service and return points one are the highest they've been over his entire career but what are some of the factors behind Paul's success this year the first and foremost reason is his mentality Paul started off with Fritz opela and tifo back in 2015 but quickly fell behind Fritz and foe despite seeing steady progress Paul kind of seemed like he was content with where he was born in New Jersey and having grown up in North Carolina the younger version of Tommy just wanted to have fun in an interview he said he was actually getting alcohol tested for 6 months until he decided enough was enough Paul cracked the top 200 in 2016 the top 100 in 2019 and finally the top 50 in 2021 but according to Diego moyano Paul's USA Coach at the time A Time came when Tommy saw Fritz in tfo's successes and was thinking to himself hey I belong in that group I have that level in me why am I not there yet in Diego's opinion that was the turning point for Paul on the court though the mentality has also been different Paul says he wasn't always the most focused during or in between points but now he's always present in the moment and that helps him to avoid lapses in concentration and dipson is leveled throughout the match another strong reason behind Paul's success so far is his partnership with Brad Stein Stein is well known among coaches he helped former world number one Jim corer to the top of the ranking and was also heavily involved in Kevin Anderson's Wimbledon final run in 2018 and top five presents Tommy and Brad started working together in 2019 when Tommy was just about cracking the top 100 initially the focus was on Paul's volleys which weren't really great at the time according to Stein they spent almost a year working on volleys alone with that part of the puzzle already fixed they began working on getting Paul to become more of an all Court attacking player now some fans noticed that the uptick in Paul's career trajectory coincided with a change in racket from Wilson to yanx Paul uses the yanx VOR 98 a frame with a wider string pattern for more pop and action the latest generation of the vcor 98 has the tip of the frame slightly thin to encourage faster swings plus a widening of the head at the two and 10:00 positions of the face expands the sweet spots plus all the other X's and O's of course we see these changes from time to time but it seems to be more of a sponsorship thing to me you definitely can't attribute all the improvements across the board to just an equipment change alone all right let's talk about Paul's Journey he's 27 now and he's been grinding on tour for nearly a decade up until this year he had just one ATP 250 title to his name you could say that he's been a bit of a slow learner in some way and that's why he's kind of flown under the radar a bit last year Paul became the first American man to reach an Australian Open semi-final since 2009 he also beat alcaraz who was world number one at the time and cracked the top 15 with two titles this year including an ATP 500 title plus deep runs in Masters 1000s and slams you kind of get the feeling that Tommy Paul is on the verge of a major breakthrough and is now ready to make up for lost time I personally love Paul's grit but I'm more impressed with his attitude he's not the most emotionally expressive guy often times when he's producing his best tennis he's pretty quiet even when he hits a great shot you only get to see maybe a fist pump he's definitely not screaming at the top of his lungs or the type of player to orchestrate the crowd every single time I'm not throwing shade at anyone or saying these things are wrong I actually think that these things make the game more fun for all of us but just looking at Paul's attitude on the court you see someone who just wants to get on with business before now Tommy would have been content with his achievements so far but not this version of Tommy being the American number one for a week isn't quite going to cut it this time he wants to crack the top 10 and win the big titles I think that Tommy's 2024 has been underrated and it's not just a flash in the pan whether you choose to believe it or not I think that Tommy Paul has a genuine shot at becoming the next big thing in American tennis his season has been satisfying to watch and it's safe to say that Paul has now turned himself into a threat on all surfaces with improvements in his forehand backhand slice and transition game plus he now has more clarity on his identity as a player I'm of the opinion that Paul's style of play is better suited to Grass he's now more of an attacking style player and the points are shorter on the surface also his transition game and backhand slice are going to be more effective on grass 2 my guess is that he becomes a Wimbledon Dark Horse in the future with his athleticism and abilities in transition on hardcourts where the playing field is arguably stronger Tommy will still need to work on his rally consistency and shot tolerance and also bump up the first serve percentage just a little bit of trivia here but I find it weird that Tommy might be naturally left-handed but plays as a right-hander I see him signing autographs and writing left-handed all the time it's also the case for Jack Draper and Rafa both of whom are naturally right-handed but also play as lefties anyway back to Tommy we can also expect to see more success on Clay moving forward and this year was really a breakout year on the surface for him he's a great mover already and with more weight added to his shot don't be too surprised if you see Tommy Paul making another deep run out of clay Masters 1000 hopefully he doesn't run into Francisco cundo Paul will most definitely get a massive confidence boost from his 2024 season and should be able to capitalize on it going forward no matter how the rest of the season plays out he's now 12th in the race to the ATP finals in Turin and is currently 370 points behind eighth Place Alex D Manor at the time of this recording Paul has an 11 and 24 head-to-head record against top 10 opponents for someone who hasn't cracked the top 10 yet that's not a bad record at all really now one area that's been a subject of debate among sports commentators is about what to work on as a player who is already Midway through their career do you focus more on your weaknesses at this point or do you pay more attention to your strengths because for a player who's already halfway through their career weaknesses are a lot more difficult to deal with for someone like Tommy who already has the fitness athleticism and transition game in the bag does he focus more on improving his serve and forehand I think that's the move he already has amazing range depth and variety so if he can crank it up a little bit more to minimize those loose games he'll definitely be difficult to stop one good thing about Paul's game is that his style of play doesn't look unnatural or robotic so he shouldn't have too many issues working on areas that need some improvement Tommy Paul might not grab all the headlines like Shelton fritz or tifo but I believe we can all agree that he's been one of the more consistent American players in the last 12 months 2024 has been the best season of his career so far and judging from everything we've seen in his game I wouldn't be surprised when the bigger titles start rolling in but over to you guys what do you think Tommy Paul's ceiling is and what do you make of his career so far be sure to let me know in the comments and if you haven't already subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on any of our US Open coverage and also check out our Discord Community too I'm doing a deep dive on Naomi Osaka and taking your questions from the Discord and putting the best ones in the video I can't wait to to get all of your thoughts until next time keep going for the lines