Pouille Shocks Nadal in Marathon at Flushing Meadows

September 4, 2016 | By Brian Coleman
Lucas Pouille (5)
Photo credit: Brian Coleman

Rafael Nadal and Lucas Pouille played the best match of the 2016 U.S. Open up to this point on Sunday evening, and it was the young Frenchman who held his nerve in the end, hanging on to win the biggest match of his career 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(6) in a thrilling four hour and six minute battle inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

“I think because mentally I’m stronger and physically, I’m stronger. That gave me a lot of confidence before the match,” Pouille said of how he has found the resiliency in all of his matches. “I knew if I wanted to win that it’s not going to be like three sets, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. It would be long. So I was ready for it. I think I was 100 percent before the match.”

Pouille was ready for the long haul, having played back-to-back five set matches heading into this Round of 16 showdown with the two-time U.S. Open champion and fourth-seeded Nadal. He got out to a fast start and won six of the first seven games to take the opening set in just 28 minutes.

Nadal responded by breaking in Pouille’s opening service game of the second set to quickly build a 3-1 advantage and closed it out with another break at 5-2 to even the match at one set a piece.

The 22-year-old Pouille broke Nadal to open up the third set and held in each of his service games to win the third set and move within one set of advancing to a major quarterfinal for the second time this year, having reached the final eight at Wimbledon earlier this summer.

Nadal continued to show the fight that has makes him a 14-time Grand Slam champion, winning a 45 minute fourth set, and after breaking Pouille to begin the deciding fifth set, it seemed as if the match was slipping away from Pouille.

But Pouille sniffed out a break point at 3-4 down, reading a Nadal serve out wide to set up a Nadal forehand error which brought the set back on serve. Both players would hold serve in the remaining games to send the match into a deciding tiebreaker.

Nadal would save three match points from 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker but then pushed what should have been a relatively easy volley into the net at 6-6 which set up the fourth match point for Pouille. The Frenchman made it count, ripping a forehand winner down the line on the ensuing point to seal his third five-set win in a row.

“I think he played a good match. He started so strong,” said Nadal. “I fought until the end. There were things I could do better. But I had the right attitude … I needed something else. I need something more that was not there today. I am going to keep working to try to find it.”

Pouille’s victory makes it three Frenchmen in the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time in the Open Era, as ninth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and 10th-seeded Gael Monfils, who now plays Pouille in the quarterfinals, won their respective Round of 16 matches earlier in the day.

Tsonga took out the last American man in the singles draw, Jack Sock, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7(7), 6-2 to reach the third U.S. Open quarterfinal of his career.

In a matchup of two guys with devastating forehands, it was Tsonga who was more efficient with it, especially in the first two sets. He got the decisive break for a 5-3 lead in the first set and then again for a 3-2 lead in the second to take the commanding two sets to love lead.

Sock continued to fight into the third set and got his first break of the match for a 2-1 lead and even after Tsonga responded by breaking back for 3-3, the set would remain on serve to send it into a tiebreaker. The American would win the final three points of the tie-break to win the third set and begin a comeback attempt.

But Tsonga quickly erased any hope for the turn around, winning five straight games from 0-1 down in the fourth set and would go on to close out the victory in three hours and 13 minutes.

“We’re both trying to serve fairly big and then dictate with the forehand. It probably showed out there,” Sock said of his and Tsonga’s similar styles of play as big hitters. “Whoever was doing that in the point, whoever was dictating with the forehand, was winning most of the points.

I felt like he was too aggressive on his serve. I wasn’t able to push him back and get neutral a lot. He was able to move me around a lot with the forehand.”

In all, Tsonga hit 54 winners to just 32 unforced errors to propel himself into a matchup with either defending champion Novak Djokovic or Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund.

In the first match of the day, Monfils ousted Cyprus’ Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 to notch his fourth consecutive straight-sets win in Flushing Meadows. 

Credit all photos to Brian Coleman

France's Lucas Pouille is into the Round of 16 at Flushing Meadows after a win Sunday over the number four seed, Spain's Rafael Nadal

 


Brian Coleman
Senior Editor, Long Island Tennis Magazine
Brian Coleman is the Senior Editor for Long Island Tennis Magazine. He may be reached at brianc@usptennis.com.
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