Fritz Beats Paul to Defend Delray Beach Open Title

On Monday, Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul battled for the Delray Beach Open in a match that was postponed from Sunday. Paul, fresh off of his title at the Dallas Open, was trying to upend Fritz, the defending Delray Beach Open champion, in a showdown of the top two ranked American men.

Fritz successfully defending his title as he won 6-2, 6-3 over Paul, becoming just the second player in tournament history to win back-to-back titles, matching Jason Stoltenberg’s feat in 1996 and 1997.

“I had a long list of things I needed to do well, but I think a lot of that went out the window when we realized the conditions for the match, that it was going to be so windy,” Fritz explained. “On both sides, I had different ideas of what I wanted to do because I was just limited with the wind. I tried to serve as best I could, which it got me out of some trouble. I started to find it at the end. But it’s incredibly tough to play and do what you want to do when it’s windy like this.”

Fritz and Paul had split their previous four matches against one another, but Fritz controlled play in this one from the start. After rolling through the opening set, Paul tried to break his compatriot’s serve for more than 15 minutes at 3-3 in the second set, but Fritz was able to save all the break points he faced, seven total in the match.

He secured a key break right after holding to go ahead 5-3 in the second set, and proceeded to serve out the championship.

“I think there were some questions about how I was physically feeling,” said Fritz. “I didn’t play one of the rubbers at Davis Cup. I wasn’t feeling amazing after Australia, so it’s great to come here and feel like I’m moving and physically I’m definitely there and can keep playing. I don’t need to take any time off to recover and mentally, there were tough conditions, especially today. I kind of just powered through it. All the pressure was on me this week defending the title and I was able to get through it.”

For Paul, it was another successful week after he arrived in Delray Beach after winning in Dallas the week before.

“He won the break points and I didn’t win the break points,” said Paul. “That was pretty much the difference.”