Both players held advantages going into the match—Paul had won the pair’s last three meetings in a row, while Tiafoe had reached the last three Houston finals in a row, winning the title in 2023 and finishing runner-up in 2024 and 2025.
And both of those trends produced one of the matches of the week, which included a rain delay of just over an hour and a half, with Tiafoe serving up a break in the second set at 4-3.
Upon resumption the two traded holds until they went to a third set, where Tiafoe actually drew first blood, breaking for a 2-1 lead. Paul not only broke right back, but he ended up winning three games in a row—breaking back, holding then breaking again—for a 4-2 lead, but things swung right back the other way as Tiafoe broke right back in the next game, and the two went into a holding pattern until the tie-break.
They were neck and neck for most of the breaker until Paul finally inched ahead 6-4 with double match point. After missing out on those, he had a third one at 7-6, missing out on that one too—but it was fourth time lucky as he drew a long Tiafoe backhand at 8-7 to finally close it out.
