A tiebreak that changed the match
Alexander Zverev led by a set and a break on Wednesday in Mason, Ohio. He was two points from closing the match out. He still walked off beaten, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4, by an 18th seed who has now taken three of their four meetings.
Tommy Paul held a match point against him in the second-set tiebreak and survived it because Zverev netted a forehand at 6-6. Paul won the next point, put a return deep to the baseline, and watched the German find the net again. A rain delay of close to 90 minutes had already broken the rhythm of the afternoon at 4-6, 4-3.
The third set followed the same script in reverse. Zverev moved 4-2 ahead, then lost the last four games. At 4-4, 30-0 on the Zverev serve, Paul reeled off four consecutive points, and after the changeover he closed the match in five.
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The number behind the upset
Paul won 15 of 32 second-serve return points, 46.9%, which is the sort of figure that quietly decides matches between players separated by a handful of ranking places. Against a server of Zverev’s height and reach, converting nearly half of those looks is the whole story.
Paul, typically, refused to dress it up. “Not really sure,” he said when asked what changed. “I guess just put some returns in. He gave me a couple of looks at second serves and a couple of doubles there, that helped me out a ton. Then I was just going after the ball a little bit more.”
For Zverev, the French Open champion, this closes a thin block of pre-US Open preparation. He went out to Tallon Griekspoor in the Montreal first round two weeks earlier. Two hard-court events, two early exits, and a fortnight to fix it in New York.
The draw keeps opening up
Paul reaches his first Cincinnati quarterfinal and meets seventh seed Flavio Cobolli, who came through 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3 against 12th seed Rafael Jodar after breaking the 19-year-old in the sixth game of the decider. The pair combined for 99 errors, with Cobolli ahead 33-26 on winners.
Elsewhere, Arthur Fils removed fifth seed Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-4, and unseeded Argentine Thiago Agustin Tirante beat 14th seed Jakub Mensik 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Tirante has now taken out Taylor Fritz in Montreal and Novak Djokovic in Cincinnati inside two weeks. With Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz absent from the hard-court swing, the field ahead of Flushing Meadows looks unusually open.
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