Born on May 17, 1997, in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, Tommy Paul picked up a tennis racket as a child and never put it down. By 18, he was already on the pro circuit, announcing himself in a big way when he took home the junior Roland Garros title over fellow American Taylor Fritz. From there, he steadily climbed the ranks, with his breakout moment coming in 2023 when he battled into the semifinals of the Australian Open, his first Grand Slam semifinal appearance.
Now, over a decade after his first US Open, Paul is back in New York with far more than just youthful excitement on his side. What once felt like a dream has evolved into a career defined by hard work, focus, and consistency, qualities he admits weren’t top of mind when he was starting out.
“I feel like I didn’t know anything at that time,” he says. “I was just super excited to be there. I feel like now, I’ve just surrounded myself with really good people, people who push me to do all the right things. I work a lot harder. I’m much more focused on my goals. I’m more focused on my recovery between matches. I’m just more overall professional now versus then.”
That shift is clear. Over the past few years, Paul has cemented himself as one of America’s top players. He reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 2024 and followed it up with an appearance at the French Open quarterfinals in 2025, making him the first American man to reach that stage in Paris since Andre Agassi in 2003.
His preparation has evolved just as much as his game. What used to be long hours of raw practice has transformed into a finely tuned routine built around performance and recovery. Mornings are reserved for multi-hour training blocks on the court, followed by lunch and then running or interval-style weight sessions in the afternoon to keep his body at peak capacity.
“We always do tennis first just because we want to really prioritize my tennis, and we don’t want to wear down my body before going out onto the tennis court. We’ll do super long sessions where we’ll go three or four hours to kind of get the body used to it because that’s what we’ve got to be in New York.”
Those are the days Paul says are toughest, on both his mind and his body. Mornings are spent sprinting, cutting, and changing direction at lightning speed, only to come back a few hours later for another punishing block of body work. It’s the price of climbing the ranks, fueled by nothing more than love for the game. And training in Boca Raton gives him a unique edge. If he can handle Florida’s sweltering summers, he says, no fall in New York can come close.
“And then obviously with all that working out, you really [have] to make sure that you’re recovering going into the U.S. Open because you can really beat your body down,” Paul says.
Recovery is now just as much a part of his training as time on the court. For him, that means plenty of massage work, ice baths, and fueling with his must-have Dymatize product, the fast-absorbing ISO100 protein.
But it isn’t only his body he’s training. Paul believes his greatest advantage lies in his mind, especially in the marathon matches that define the Open.
“I absolutely want to do everything I can to win that match,” he says. “So having your mind there is so important. And sometimes your mind has to be stronger than your body. And that’s kind of where it comes to when you get into a fifth set, you’re both very tired, and it’s kind of whose mind’s going to push their body to go harder.”
