Jannik Sinner vs. Tommy Paul: Where to watch their Rome semifinal, preview and pick

🖥️ 📱 Stream this match live on TennisChannel.com here (Friday, 2:30 p.m. ET)

I had a sense this week that the normally laid back Tommy Paul was playing with a little more urgency than usual. Now we know why. His Ford F-150 truck was repossessed back in Florida because he missed “a couple of payments.”

“I’ve been grinding to get my truck back,” Paul said with a laugh on Thursday. “If you know me, that’s my baby. Yeah, really grinding to get that back.”

“I had to win a couple matches so I could pay that off.”

Paul says that he’s square now, and that his trainer is going to get the truck for him. Does that mean his motivation will wane? He’ll need all of it if he’s going to stand a chance against Sinner. And he knows it.

“I’ve been watching him play this week,” Paul said of Sinner. “It’s been fun to watch. Doesn’t feel like he’s rusty very much at all.”

Paul said those words before Sinner went out and hammered—there’s really no other word for it—Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in 63 minutes in their quarterfinal. Sinner slugged away at will, yet never looked as if was taking any risks. His shot-making was as clean, if not cleaner, than it has ever been. Afterward, even he couldn’t deny his brilliance.

“I was feeling great on the court, I think we all saw that,” Sinner said.

Can he keep that feeling going for another round? It might not be quite as easy as he made it look against Ruud. Sinner is 3-1 against Paul, but the matches have been close; four of their sets have gone to tiebreakers, and Paul nearly won when they met on clay in Madrid a few years ago.

Paul will have more firepower than Ruud did to combat the Sinner onslaught, and if there’s anyone who can track down his shots, it’s the ultra-athletic American. But I don’t think anyone can pick against Sinner after we what we saw on Thursday. Paul will just have to to hope he peaked too soon. Winner: Sinner