The phrase 'tense face' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to indicate someone's facial expression when they are feeling tense or anxious. For example, "He glanced around the room, his tense face betraying his fear."
If you need to yawn, yawn — open up that tense face of yours.
I saw my own pale tense face twenty years ago, and I spoke and no doubt I said the wrong thing.
We see by her concentration that she loves her craft, and by her set, tense face that she is angry and scared.
The series wraps with a close shot of Ari's tense face as he considers whether he can persuade his newly reconciled wife to give up her dolce vita dream so he can follow his.
The view gradually widens to show his arm, then his tense face and then his whole body, full of nervous energy, clad in a beige sport coat and plaid slacks.
He had a serious, tense face, but by the time he was getting his hair washed, he looked as if he was starring in one of those orgasmic Herbal Essences shampoo ads.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars and still have a tense face-off over disputed boundaries.
Behind the scenes, the Fed will now signal to each bank whether it can proceed with new payout plans, potentially creating a tense face-off with regulators.
Since last year, Japanese and Chinese patrol ships have been engaged in a tense face-off near the Senkaku islands, uninhabited islets that China calls the Diaoyus.
Peter's unruffled imperiousness only falters in the tense face-off that closes the first act, and is perhaps the production's highlight, as we watch how long-festering sibling rivalry and firmly opposed worldviews bring the brothers almost to blows.
From his first encounter with Russian authority — a tense face-off with a boyish-looking border guard at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow — he peels away Russia's stolid veneer to reveal the quirkiness and humanity beneath.
