“They don’t let you play the same tennis in the second set”: Tommy Paul explains why Alcaraz and Sinner are so hard to beat

Tommy Paul returned to competition after several months away from the tour—having last played at the US Open—and is now back in action at the Adelaide International, his second tournament of the season. After falling in his Brisbane debut to Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Paul opened his campaign in Adelaide with a win over Reilly Opelka to reach the quarterfinals of the tournament.

The second seed is looking to readjust to the demands of the tour after missing several months of competition due to injury. As the American explained in a recent interview with Gill Gross, he was forced to take time off following a prolonged struggle with a right foot injury.

“Toward the end of the year—starting from Roland Garros through the US Open—it definitely felt like I was toughing things out and not at 100 percent,” said the former world No. 8. “At Wimbledon, I was dealing with a foot problem. I ended up rupturing a tendon in my foot, but that was something that had started way before. I had sprained my ankle a while back and it never really went away. Then during Wimbledon, the tendon ruptured.”

“It sounds terrible, but it actually felt a little better after the fact. Once I let it calm down for a couple of weeks, it felt better,” the American added.

Paul had enjoyed a strong start to the year before the injury, reaching the Top 10 for the first time in his career and peaking at world No. 8 in June, shortly after reaching the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, where he was eliminated by eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz. According to Paul, the injury had already begun to trouble him during his Paris campaign.

“Around the French Open, I started feeling issues in my adductors and lower abs. I basically had a sports hernia, so we had to take care of that. That was the injury that ultimately took me out for the rest of the season after the US Open.”

The 28-year-old returns to the tour at a time when little has changed at the top of the men’s game, with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner continuing to extend their gap over the rest of the field. The pair finished the season as world No. 1 and No. 2 and contested the ATP Finals championship match—the seventh final they played against each other during the year.

While Paul owns losing head-to-head records against both players, he can still point to victories over Alcaraz (2–5) and Sinner (1–4). On several occasions, however, he has come close, even taking sets before falling short. At Wimbledon 2024, Paul led Alcaraz by a set in the quarterfinals, just as he did against Sinner in their 2025 Rome Open semifinal. In both matches, his opponents regrouped and went on to claim the victory.

“I think a lot of people look at it the wrong way. They think, ‘Oh, you did this in the first set—why didn’t you just do it again?’” Paul said when discussing the difficulty of sustaining his level against such opponents. “But these guys are really good players. They adjust. They don’t let you play the same tennis in the second set.”

“For me, a lot of times—even against Sinner and Alcaraz—the first set feels like it’s on my terms. Then you notice in the second set that they start playing more on their terms. They get more aggressive, change direction more, and basically start running the show,” the American added. “It’s very hard not to let them do that. Once their mindset switches, it’s really hard to stop them from doing what they want to do.”

“It’s something I’m still trying to figure out. A lot of it is on me, but a lot of it is on them too. They’re pretty good, so we’ll keep working on it.”

Paul’s next challenge will come against Austrian Aleksandar Vukic, who defeated Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in two tie-break sets. Once his run in Adelaide comes to an end, Paul faces an important points defence at the Australian Open, where he is defending the quarterfinals he reached in 2025. An early loss could put his place in the Top 30—and his seeding for upcoming Grand Slams—at risk.