Tommy Paul is through to face Denis Shapovalov for a shot at playing in the final but it has been a week of deja vu for the third seed at the Dallas Open who has faced one of his closest friends in Ethan Quinn and now Reilly Opelka.
A match that spooked him with Paul having followed a similar trajectory to his opponent. He called it 'super weird' afterwards and said that despite their careers following similar paths, they've never really played.
But that changed in the Quarter-Finals of the Dallas Open. After joining the top 10 for the first time, Paul continues to thrive and in a scene that sees Shelton and Tiafoe perhaps picked above him, he has shown that he is the one to watch alongside Taylor Fritz.
“Super weird. Whenever we tell someone that, they can’t believe it. We’ve played basically the same schedule our whole careers,” he said.
“He came on tour a little bit before me and he was obviously out for a while with injury. But other than that, we’ve played pretty much the same tournaments our whole career.
“We were so close to playing each other so many times. It was cool to play each other in a pretty big match here in the states, too.”