Tommy Paul has booked a showdown with World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz for the second consecutive week after defeating Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-1, 7-6(4) to reach the third round of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.
Paul leads the Spaniard 2-1 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series and knocked out the 20-year-old last week in the Toronto quarter-finals.
Paul, who claimed four breaks of serve against Humbert, is at a career-high No. 13 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and could break into the Top 10 for the first time with a deep run in Ohio.
"That 5-all game I pretty much did everything to try and go three," said Paul, who lost four straight points from 30/0 to drop serve late in set two against the Frenchman. "But then he gave me a lot of second-serve looks in that 6-5 game and that really helped me. I just put more and more balls in the court and kind of got lucky to be honest. And then once I got to the tie-break, I was pretty amped up, ready to try and close it out."
[ATP APP]
Taylor Fritz claimed his 30th hard-court match win of the season when he defeated Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 7-6(1) after winning 10 of 14 net approaches.
The recent Atlanta champion improved to 10-2 on the North American hard-court swing and next faces Serbian Dusan Lajovic, who took advantage of 35 unforced errors from Jannik Sinner to defeat the Italian 6-4, 7-6(4).
Fritz is ninth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race to Turin, hopeful of returning to the Nitto ATP Finals for the second consecutive year.
Paul leads the Spaniard 2-1 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series and knocked out the 20-year-old last week in the Toronto quarter-finals.
Paul, who claimed four breaks of serve against Humbert, is at a career-high No. 13 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and could break into the Top 10 for the first time with a deep run in Ohio.
"That 5-all game I pretty much did everything to try and go three," said Paul, who lost four straight points from 30/0 to drop serve late in set two against the Frenchman. "But then he gave me a lot of second-serve looks in that 6-5 game and that really helped me. I just put more and more balls in the court and kind of got lucky to be honest. And then once I got to the tie-break, I was pretty amped up, ready to try and close it out."
[ATP APP]
Taylor Fritz claimed his 30th hard-court match win of the season when he defeated Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 7-6(1) after winning 10 of 14 net approaches.
The recent Atlanta champion improved to 10-2 on the North American hard-court swing and next faces Serbian Dusan Lajovic, who took advantage of 35 unforced errors from Jannik Sinner to defeat the Italian 6-4, 7-6(4).
Fritz is ninth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race to Turin, hopeful of returning to the Nitto ATP Finals for the second consecutive year.