Delray Beach Open singles final preview

This was intended to be a review of the Delray Beach Open championship match that was supposed to happen on Sunday afternoon, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Now the Delray Beach Open tennis fans get a President's Day final between the top Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul.

Fritz and Paul have four head-to-head meetings on the ATP Tour, and they split those results 2-2. Those four meetings happened between 2021 and 2023, and the pattern has been each man wins every other match. Paul won the last match in Acapulco in the semifinals.

Paul has been moving up the rankings and is nipping at Fritz's heels. Fritz is currently World No. 10 and Paul is World No. 14. Fritz has been the top-ranked American for years, but Paul is on a winning streak as he grabbed his second career ATP title last week at the Dallas Open. Fritz is trying to defend his 2023 Delray Beach Open title.

American men's tennis is in great hands

The Delray Beach Open semifinals featured four Americans: Fritz, Paul, Frances Tiafoe, and Marcos Giron. There are currently seven Americans in the Top 50 rankings. In addition to Fritz and Paul, Tiafoe is 15th, Ben Shelton is 16th, Sebastian Korda is 33rd, Chris Eubanks is 34th, and Giron is 44th.

The men range in age from 21 (Shelton) to 30 (Giron) with three at 26 (Fritz, Paul, Tiafoe). Korda is 23, and Eubanks is 27. The age and experience level of the American men bode well for the US to have another Grand Slam champion. We know it has been a long wait, 21 years since Andy Roddick won the US Open, but paydirt may soon happen.

As for the immediate matter of predicting who wins the Delray Beach Open, the rain delay gives Fritz time to recover from a very physical match against Giron and gives the red-hot Paul time to cool off. Fritz will win in three sets.

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