No honeymoon from the grind for Tommy Paul

By Grant Thompson

Even a honeymoon comes with a little training.

Tommy Paul had just married longtime partner Paige Lorenze when the couple headed to Nantucket for their post-wedding getaway. There was one catch: Paul’s fitness coach Franco Herrero would accompany them; the demands of professional tennis being too great to have an idle week in the heart of the season.

Paul’s wife, an American influencer and entrepreneur who boasts 1.3 million Instagram followers, supported that decision.

“She knew I would be waking up early and getting the work in and she could sleep in and I’d be back by the time she wakes up,” said Paul, making his eighth main-draw appearance at the Cincinnati Open.

“We were definitely still getting that work in. But at the same time, we were having a good time. We’ll definitely have a second half to the honeymoon without my trainer.”

It was in Nantucket one year ago that Paul proposed to Lorenze, even removing a protective boot from his left foot (nursing a ruptured ligament) so he could get down on one knee and pop the question. Returning to the Massachusetts island this summer, Paul was in full health and eager to maintain his fitness.

“She knew that these tournaments — Cincinnati, especially the US Open, are like the most important tournaments for Americans and tournaments that I really want to do well at,” said Paul, who first met Lorenze at the 2022 US Open after previously exchanging messages on Instagram. “She was understanding.”

Married on July 14 at the dreamy Old Westbury Gardens in Long Island, New York, the couple’s special day was featured in Vogue. Among the day’s highlights was a memorable speech from Paul’s tourmate and groomsman Reilly Opelka.

“He basically did a roast of everybody,” Paul said. “It was unbelievable. Seriously, it was so good. Hopefully we can get some footage of that speech out.”

The wedding also offered a chance for Paul and his generation of American players — Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe and Opelka among them — to reflect on the days they would train at a USTA base in Florida and have a certain teenage freedom.

“We would hang out every single day and we would get into shit together every day,” Paul said with a laugh. “Not just tennis stuff.

That quartet of Americans have since all ascended inside the Top 20 of the PIF ATP Rankings at some point in their careers, with Paul, Fritz and Tiafoe even reaching the Top 10. They are frequenting the tournaments they once dreamed of playing, but their increasingly busy schedules mean those shared moments are harder to organize.

“If the schedule works out, we’ll go out to dinners at these tournaments. It was really cool to hang out away from tennis and we were talking about how we have to do something every year,” Paul said. “We have to get together, go somewhere, somebody’s gotta get married every year or something.

“Now we’re all pretty professional and we’re going about our business.”

Paul’s next order of business is right here in Cincinnati.