Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal has admitted that “he didn’t play well enough” against Lucas Pouille in the fourth round of the US Open on Sunday, which saw him lose 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 in what is the biggest upset of the tournament so far.
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The nervy, four-hour thriller of spectacular ball-striking and gutsy net closes ended in an extraordinary fifth-set tiebreak.
Nadal responded with an equally dominant showing in the second but when Pouille started to enjoy more joy on the Spaniard’s serve in the third, the writing appeared to be on the wall for the former world number one.
In the final-set tiebreak, Pouille held a seemingly insurmountable 6-3 lead, with three match points on his racket.
He’s got that French flair mixed with some ice-cold Scandinavian nerves (his mother is Finnish) that allow him to pull out back-to-back aces while serving for a set against someone like Nadal, and paint the line with a forehand victor to seal a stunning victory on Arthur Ashe stadium.
And with several talented players rising through the ranks, à la Pouille, Nadal will need to find a way to get back his peak mental strength that helped him win all those majors throughout his career, because mistakes like the one he made in the breaker will no longer cut it.
The 22-year-old then pulled 6-3 clear to open up three match points but, while Nadal saved them all, he then missed a simple forehand and Pouille pounced to snatch a momentous victory.
Edmund, playing in a Grand Slam fourth round for the first time, barely got a look-in during the first two sets against the world number one and defending champion, who booked a last-eight meeting with ninth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2 victor over American Jack Sock.
Pouille said: ‘It’s my first match on the centre court here against Rafa. “I have good feelings on the court, so we’ll see”.
“At the end it was full”.
Pouille is set to face off in the quarterfinals against his countryman Gael Monfils, the No. 10 seed, who handily dismissed Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 earlier Sunday.
Djokovic, 9-0 in US Open fourth-round appearances, struggled through a first-round victory over Jerzy Janowicz but hasn’t broken a sweat since. Can he add to his collection of 14 grand slam titles?
The giant Argentine had required treatment himself on a right shoulder injury after dropping serve to go 2-1 down in the first set.
Kerber’s next opponent will be 2015 US Open runner-up Roberta Vinci of Italy, who beat Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 7-6, 6-2.
Over the years, the US Open has had a habit of producing unexpected champions – like Juan Martin del Potro in 2009, Marin Cilic in 2014, and on the women’s side, Flavia Pennetta last year.
Tsonga advanced to a clash against either world number one Novak Djokovic or unseeded Briton Kyle Edmund. Nadal was not at his best, but he could have still put the match to bed if he hadn’t made those ghastly forehand errors at 2-2 and 6-6 in the tiebreaker. “Doesn’t matter if I had the injuries or not, no?” As he rose with eyes wide open – and tongue still wagging – the last man from France to win any Grand Slam singles title, 1983 French Open champion Yannick Noah, whose son Joakim recently joined the New York Knicks, spread around high-fives in the stands.
Australian Open champion Kerber defeated two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova as she looks to improve on her best showing in NY of a semifinal spot in 2011.
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More seesaw action was in store, with Pouille going up 6-3 in the tiebreaker but then squandering all three of those match points, the last of them on a forehand that sailed well over the baseline.
