Reigning champion Paul earned the evening’s bragging rights over Opelka, the 2022 title holder, after breaking for a second time to clinch a 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory.
“Super weird. Whenever we tell someone that, they can’t believe it. We’ve played basically the same schedule our whole careers,” Paul said on Tennis Channel.
“He came on tour a little bit before me and he was obviously out for a while wth injury. But other than that, we’ve played pretty much the same tournaments our whole career. We were so close to playing each other so many times. It was cool to play each other in a pretty big match here in the states, too.”
