Can I use screen taps to put the iPad Pro 13 to sleep without a complete shutdown?

First, perhaps understand the Apple Support Community is a user-to-user technical forum. Contributors here are all end-users, just like you. Other than the site Moderators, Apple neither monitor nor participate here.

As such, if you hope to reach Apple through these forums, you will be disappointed.

Apple does, however, invite submission of Feature Requests via its Product Feedback portal. For iPad and iPadOS:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

Tapping the screen is the gesture to wake the iPad. There isn't an equivalent gesture to cause the iPad to sleep.

However, given that you have an iPad Pro with FaceID, you can optimally set your iPad settings such that it will automatically sleep after two minutes of no activity or attention to the screen:

Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock - set to 2 minutes

Settings > FaceID & Passcode > Attention Aware Features - set to ON

The Attention Aware feature actively uses the iPad's FaceID sensor array to detect when you are paying attention to the iPad screen. If your attention is elsewhere, the iPad will automatically lock/sleep upon expiry of the configured Auto-Lock period.