The 30-year-old Spaniard, the victor of 14 majors including two in NY, suffered a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8/6) defeat to world number 25 Pouille in a four-hour last-16 epic.
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On Sunday, in front of a mesmerised Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, he led with a break in the decider before he was forced to save three match points in the tie-breaker.
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.
After his streak of four consecutive major championships – the first time a man had done that in almost 50 years – was capped by his initial French Open title, Djokovic was upset in the third round at Wimbledon.
This loss snaps a brilliant 12-year run for Nadal who has made the quarter final of every Grand Slam he has played in.
For Lucas Pouille, two trips to Grand Slam quarterfinals – including Sunday’s US Open upset of 14-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal – has taken any lingering sting out of his failure to make France’s Olympic team.
His best runs since have been two quarter-final spots at the 2015 Australian and French Opens. “Yeah, it’s never done until the last point is over”, he said.
“Losing in the fourth round after having a big chance to play a great event here, feeling myself ready for it, for sure I am not very satisfied, no?”
Pouille now owns 25 of his 40 career ATP-level match victories this season and will likely climb to at least 18th in the world even if he loses an all-French quarterfinal showdown against Gael Monfils. “To play the world number one on the biggest tennis court in the world, doesn’t get much better than that”. They played one point to begin the third set: Tsonga double-faulted, then retired from the match.
“I moved to Dubai”.
Now the Spaniard had one of his favourite shots tantalisingly before his eyes, an approach forehand of the kind he has drilled for a victor countless times in hundreds of matches throughout the years.
“I fought to the end today but I needed something that was not there”.
The two-time champion was unable to capitalise on a 1-0 lead in the fifth set against the record third Frenchman to reach the last eight in NY – a first in the Open tennis era. “I was not confident before the match”.
While Novak Djokovic booked his place in the quarter-finals with a straight-sets win over Britain’s Kyle Edmund. This only means that 2016 is the first year since 2004 in which Nadal has failed to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final, according to BBC.
Kerber defeated Petra Kvitova 6-3, 7-5 while Vinci enjoyed a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 win over Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine. I think I handled it pretty good mentally and “tennistically”.
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“When I was a kid, of course I was dreaming to winning slams and being one day number one”, admitted Kerber.
