In a sport where there’s nowhere to hide, Tommy Paul hopes you won’t see him coming.
“Being an outdoor kind of guy, I wear camo every single week if not every day,” Paul told me on a drive back from the Hard Rock Stadium.
In between practice for the then-upcoming Miami Open, the world No. 23 was celebrating the launch of the CT-Rally v2 “Outdoor Court” edition. The “Outdoor Court” is Paul’s first colorway collab with New Balance, his longtime apparel and shoe sponsor, and serves somewhat as a status symbol for where he fits within an increasingly open tennis landscape.
“I think it’s the best-looking shoe on the market in tennis,” he said. “Obviously, I’m going to be a little bit biased but I don’t think that’s a biased take. It’s a very, very attractive shoe.”
New Balance boasts a small but mighty stable of players that most famously includes two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff, and the brand has often deviated from the more traditional silhouettes typically seen on court—something Paul sees as right in line with his athletic persona.
“They do what they want, and they do it well,” he told me. “They want to give me a platform to express myself and what I’m about.”
With this sartorial nod to off-court hobbies like fishing and hunting, Paul has finally found a way to combine his very public day job with a lifelong love affair with the great outdoors.
“It’s freedom, it’s meditation, but it’s also an escape,” Paul said of his open-air pursuits. “As tennis players, we’re non-stop on the road. Our schedules are insane. Being outdoors represents a chance to do something else, to get out there and not hear the noise of people, and not feel the same grind.
“Growing up in North Carolina, we’d be fishing every weekend I wasn’t playing in the summer. It was something I absolutely loved doing. I knew that, when I got older, I’d have that kind living where you go out there fishing, harvesting, and eating. It’s even cooler now because I’m in Florida and I can do it all year round.”
As a brand, Paul’s ship has come in literally in addition to figuratively: his Miami prep also included the unveiling of a partnership with Yellowfin Yachts—though Paul laughingly took issue with so lofty a title for his new boat.
“That is so funny,” he said when I called it a “yacht.” “Reilly [Opelka]’s been calling it my yacht the whole time. I had a boat before and he would always call that a yacht and that was far from a yacht.
“But this boat is serious. We went out on the water in it for the first time and it was so cool. I had the absolute best time. I was grinning ear to ear. I already told everyone the first place I’m going in it is the Bahamas, for sure.”
But Paul isn’t looking towards a vacation anytime soon. The 28-year-old shut down his 2025 season after the US Open thanks to a foot injury that popped up at Wimbledon. Though his ranking dipped from a career-high of No. 8, Paul quickly re-entered the ATP conversation, one that has evolved past a question of who would lead a group of talented Americans.