After losing to his opponent and missing the semifinals of the French Open, Paul still made a new breakthrough in his career

As we all know, the four Grand Slams are the highest-level tennis tournaments, namely the Fast Hard Court Grand Slam in Melbourne, Australia, the Clay Grand Slam in Paris, France, the Lawn Grand Slam in London, England, and the Fast Hard Court Grand Slam in New York, USA. It is not easy to achieve good results in all four Grand Slams because they all have different venues. However, one player made a new career breakthrough at Roland Garros this week. So, who exactly is this player? What kind of breakthrough did he create? Today, let this article take you to take a look.

That player is American Paul, who won his first career tour victory back in 2016. With each year since, Paul has improved. In the 2021 season, Paul won his first career tour title at the ATP 250 Stockholm Open. That year, he also reached the round of 16 of his first career Masters. With this series of records, Paul rose to No. 43 in the world that year and became the backbone of the American men's tennis players.

Although Paul did not make it to the final of the Tour in 2022, he did reach the deeper rounds of both the Grand Slam and the Masters, which greatly boosted Paul's self-confidence and attracted the attention of the fans. At the 2023 Australian Open, Paul defeated German veteran Struff in the first round, and after winning the first round of the Australian Open for four consecutive years, he was out of control, defeating Spain's Fokina, compatriot Brooksby, and Spain's Agut in succession, reaching the quarterfinals of a hard court Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his career. In the quarter-finals, Paul's opponent was compatriot Shelton.

In this matchup, Paul used four sets to settle the battle and reach the semifinals of his first career Grand Slam. Despite losing to Serbian magnate Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals, it is understandable considering that his opponent has won nine Australian Open titles. This year, Paul also reached the semi-finals of the Masters, and the world ranking is only a stone's throw away from the top 10.

At Wimbledon 2024, Paul, who has won five consecutive grass-court events and won the first grass-court tournament title of his career, sang all the way to Wimbledon, defeating Spain's Pee Martinez, Finland's Vertanen, Kazakhstan's Bublik, Spain's Agut and others to reach the quarterfinals of his first career lawn Grand Slam. Unfortunately, in the quarter-finals, Paul was unable to grasp the lead of the first set victory, and was reversed by Spain's Alcaraz in three consecutive sets.

In the first round of the French Open last week, Paul won three sets in a row to defeat Denmark's Moss, winning the Roland Garros tournament for the third consecutive year. In the second round, Paul lost two sets in a row. Fortunately, this is a Grand Slam arena, and he adjusted his form and defeated Hungary's Fučovic, who had reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, in three sets in a row, and advanced with difficulty.

Paul went on to reach the quarter-finals of a major on clay for the first time in his career, beating former Masters champion Khachanov of Russia and Poppelin of Australia. In this way, Paul has reached the quarterfinals in the Australian Open of hard-court Grand Slam events, the French Open of clay Grand Slam events, and Wimbledon of grass-court Grand Slam events. It is worth mentioning that he is the only active American men's tennis player to do so.

Despite losing in the quarter-finals to four-time Grand Slam champion Spain's Alcaraz, Paul still made a breakthrough in his career. That's it for today, and it will continue tomorrow.(Source: Tennis Home Author: Yixin Jushi)