MIAMI — “What do you think? Do you like them?” Tommy Paul asked last week, as the rain fell on the Miami Open.
He was talking about his new, camouflage tennis look that New Balance has thought up for him. It’s not the usual look for a tennis player — a tucker hat with a camo brim and front, and a similar color scheme on his shoes.
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But Paul isn’t the usual tennis player. He loves the outdoors, likes to fish and hunt. He loves camouflage, and really just about anything that flicks at the outdoor life. New Balance even put their logo in orange on the hat and the shoes, just like the deer hunters have to avoid getting shot accidentally.
“It’s been couple of years in the works, and I’m, I’m just pumped,” Paul said. “We’ve been working on it for so long.”
Paul played his way into the quarterfinals with a 6-1, 6-3 thumping of Tomás Martín Etcheverry of Argentina, and after what unfolded for his compatriots Tuesday, a few of them might want to consider some camoflauge.
The day had started with such promise for the believers in America’s tennis present and future.
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Five American men had landed in the Miami Open round of 16 for the first time in three decades. One of them, Sebastian Korda, got there by knocking off the world No. 1, Carlos Alcaraz, in a three-set scrap Sunday afternoon. It thrilled the Hard Rock Stadium crowd as American men have rarely done in recent years. All five played in the daytime, before Coco Gauff headlined the night session, into the quarterfinals of her hometown tournament for the first time.
All six of the Americans in action Tuesday were Floridians. Four are locals, who sleep in their own beds during this tournament, though the hometown cooking only counts for so much in Miami, informally known as the northern capital of Latin America.
Alex Michelsen, a transplanted Floridian from California, got a taste of that Monday, shushing a crowd that was loudly in the tank for Alejandro Tabilo of Chile after a three-set win. Michelsen’s reward was a round-of-16 duel with Jannik Sinner.
He fought nobly, and even served for the second set, but Sinner’s defense and pace proved too much. He broke Michelsen back, before prevailing in a tiebreak that started with a great escape after the American botched a routine overhead for a 7-5, 7-6(5) win.
By the time it was all over, a day that began full of hope and turned ugly in the afternoon ended on a series of highs, with Paul, Frances Tiafoe and Gauff winning three of the last four matches. As night fell, there were three wins, three wins, three losses, one spasmed back, an aching knee, and three tennis reclamation projects — Paul, Tiafoe and Gauff — gaining steam.
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On Monday, Tiafoe had saved two match points before prevailing 13-11 in a third-set tiebreak against defending champion Jakub Mensík. On Tuesday against the dangerous Térence Atmane, he was down 0-40 at 4-4 in the third set. He stopped making errors, started landing first serves, climbed out of the hole, and broke Atmane in the next game to make the Miami quarterfinals for the first time with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 win.
“The only thing I was thinking about was trying to win this point,” Tiafoe said of the moment when he was just about done. “It’s also not making the moments bigger than what they actually are. Just, just try to focus on what it takes to win and not the win itself.”
He will face Jannik Sinner in the quarters Wednesday, a tall task, even for a local, but Tiafoe isn’t counting himself out.
“He puts his socks and undies on just like I do,” he said.
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Tiafoe had an advantage over Sebastian Korda. He was playing a Frenchman. Korda faced Martin Landaluce of Spain and vociferous support from the stands.
Serving up match point in a second-set tiebreak, Korda missed on his first ball because it caught the tape. He sent his second one kicking into the service box and up at the eyes of Landaluce, the 20-year-old world No. 151 who came through qualifying.
For the third time in the match — it didn’t work the first two times — Landaluce jumped into the backhand return, and swung about as hard as he could, and ripped the ball across the court. Korda never had a chance.
Korda lost the next two points and the set. Landaluce let out a roar of “Vamos!” Korda waved a finger at the chair umpire, calling for the trainer. A minute later he was lying beside the court on his stomach, receiving treatment for a sore back that has been bothering him for more than a month, the latest ailment in a string of injuries the past three years.
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Landaluce broke an ailing Korda’s serve in the second game of the third set, let Korda back in midway through, then broke him a final time to seal a 2-6, 7-6(6), 6-4 comeback that would have made his idol, Rafael Nadal, proud.
“He was guessing T, I was going out wide and clipped the top of the net,” Korda said in an interview after a cool-down.
“Otherwise, an hour and a half ago, I would have been in the locker room, happy and recovering for my next match. But, you know, that’s the way tennis works. It’s not always perfect. It doesn’t always work out.”
Landaluce credited the charge to a crowd on the Grandstand that leaned Landaluce for most of the late morning and afternoon, ringing the stands with the “Olé” cheer and rattling the metal bleachers when matters got tight in the third set.
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“To win this way feels incredible. The Spaniards have that spirit — (Juan Carlos) Ferrero, (David) Ferrer, (Rafael) Nadal and Carlitos (Alcaraz),” Landaluce said at the end. “When I found myself in that situation, I told myself that I had to do the same.”
Landaluce has been practicing with Nadal at his Mallorca academy, where he trains, since he was 14.
“To speak with him, get some of his tips, watch him practice day by day, I think that that got into my head,” Landaluce, who was among the last players to get into the qualifying tournament in Miami, said in his news conference.
“I was 15 or 16 and he would play with me like a top one. He was giving everything.”
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It’s been a couple of tennis generations since the American men had a role model like that. The last two male Grand Slam winners, Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, largely disappeared from the sport for more than a decade and have only recently reemerged. During that time, young American women had Serena and Venus Williams to look up to, and those two have spawned another generation of Grand Slam winners and finalists, including Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Sofia Kenin and Gauff.
Taylor Fritz has come pretty close to getting to the top of the mountain without a near-contemporary as a role model, making the U.S. Open final in 2024. But Fritz came into this season struggling with tendonitis in his right knee. He’s been trying to play through it, and lately it’s looked that way. He didn’t have much lift on his serve. He was slow to switch direction and gave up on balls he often tries to chase.
Fritz didn’t want to blame his knee for his los to Jiří Lehečka, who beat him 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-2, holding his serve all afternoon. He said all the right things. They played at a high level. Lehečka was better. The match turned on a couple of break points that Lehečka won and he didn’t.
Then, just as quickly, he weighed the costs and benefits of taking time off. He said he needed to talk to his team before committing to his next tournament. Clay is coming, which will be softer on his knee, but harder on his tennis. He hates to sit out and watch the competition pile up ranking points, and he has been told that keeping the knee moving will irritate it less, not more.
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There’s a big risk to all that though.
“If I do that and it doesn’t work out, then, I’m in a really bad spot come grass court season when I really need to be healed,” he said during an interview. A few minutes later, he was off to figure out what comes next.
By then, Michelsen was on his way to losing to Sinner and it was up to Gauff to give the Americans one win on Hard Rock Stadium. She came out hitting hard and smoking against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.
Gauff has long wanted to win the Miami Open more than any tournament other than a Grand Slam. She grew up an hour north of the Miami Open’s venue, in Delray Beach. She is a massive fan of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, who play in the building. Familiar faces fill the crowd. She gets to drive her own car to her matches if she wants. She’s a crowd favorite most places she plays, but especially in Miami.
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That helped her overcome Bencic’s beguiling brand of low topspin and her ability to take the ball on the rise and take time away from her opponents. It may be just a split second, but it’s often enough to take opponents out of their comfort zones, especially someone like Gauff who thrives with a little extra time to set up her groundstrokes.
For a while there it looked like it was going to be too much for Gauff. Her first serve, which has been a limiting factor the past months, kept her in the match and her north-south movement got her over the line.
Bencic broke Gauff early in the third set, but her intensity dropped as she tried to manage apparent menstrual cramps. Gauff stormed back to take a 5-3 lead, running from corner to corner to chase down Bencic’s still-rolling groundstokes. An ace got her to match point. Then she kicked in a second serve, then worked a rally around to an punch volley into an open court for the 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 win.
“It was down to who could be more physical,” said Gauff, who is in her first Miami semifinal Thursday. Two more Americans who are also transplanted Floridians will try to join her Wednesday. Jessica Pegula faces Elena Rybakina. Hailey Baptiste will take on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
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Like Tiafoe, Gauff had the advantage of being undisputed crowd favorite. Paul did not.
As the crowd helped Etcheverry wake up early in the second set, Paul realized he’d better snuff them out when he could.
“The crowd was starting to get involved, and I didn’t want that at all,” said Paul, who faces Arthur Fils of France in the quarterfinals Wednesday. “I started throwing some stuff at him that I hadn’t done so far. Tried to be a little bit less predictable, and it worked out.”
Maybe it was the camouflage.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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