PARIS – Tommy Paul was pleased to come back to win his first-round match at the French Open on Sunday, of course, but perhaps not as thrilled as he was to discuss regaining the truck that was repossessed back home in Florida when he accidentally missed some payments.
The 12th-seeded Paul kept on truckin' with his clay-court results at Roland-Garros by eliminating Elmer Moller of Denmark 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 at Court Simonne-Mathieu on a day that alternated a light rain and heavy wind with sunshine.
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Afterward, the 2023 Australian Open semifinalist explained that his vehicular adventures that arose while he was reaching the semifinals at the Italian Open earlier this month resulted from changing banks and forgetting to properly adjust the automatic payments for his Ford F-150.
“I missed, I think it was, like three payments. They came and took it. I didn’t know it happened like that. I didn’t know how quick they would come and grab it — like in the middle of the night,” Paul said. “Now I’m watching all these ‘repo’ shows, where they come in and swoop trucks at 1 in the morning. It’s definitely a funny experience. To be in Europe while it happened is even crazier. But we did get it back.”
He found out that the truck was gone when his trainer — who was back in Florida — asked Paul to check his security camera footage to see whether there were any packages that had been delivered to the house and needed to be picked up.
To Paul's surprise, he recounted Sunday, “There were no packages — and no truck.”
When he scrolled back through the video, the 28-year-old American who grew up in New Jersey saw what happened.
“I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on? There’s a tow truck coming and taking my car!' I thought it was stolen at first,” he said.
When he figured it out, Paul took to social media and posted the black-and-white footage of his property being towed away from his driveway, adding a soundtrack of Celine Dion's “My Heart Will Go On.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis