In the US Open’s best match so far, Rafael Nadal was beaten by 24th-seeded Lucas Pouille of France 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6) in a four-hour match ending on Sunday evening in NY.
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The 22-year-old Pouille, seeded 24th, won a deciding tiebreak 8-6 to complete a 6-1 2-6 6-4 3-6 7-6 (6) marathon victory and join compatriots Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils into the last eight at Flushing Meadows.
The reward for Monfils will be a match Thursday against the victor of Tuesday night’s late quarterfinal between No. 1 Novak Djokovic and another Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Kvitova, the Rio Olympic bronze medallist, offered more resistance in the second before meekly surrendering with a double fault on match point to gift Kerber a place in the quarter-finals.
The match lasted four hours and seven minutes, and was decided by a fifth set tie-break – an appropriate end to a match in which the players ended up with 156 points each.
Nadal had all of the momentum but at 6-6, he dumped a routine forehand into the net to give Pouille a fourth opening and this time, he would take his chance with a crushing forehand victor into the corner to secure the biggest win of his career in front of a captivated crowd on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Nadal said his experience alone had not been enough to make the difference in that game. But I need something else, I needed something more that was not there today.
Playing steadily, and with only a dose of the spectacular, the 10th-seeded Monfils reached his first major semifinal since 2008 by beating an error-prone Pouille 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a match that concluded under Arthur Ashe Stadium’s retractable roof.
“If I do a trick shot, one, and still kill it, you will say, I’m a showman. Even if he’s one of the best, he feels the pressure”. “Last time I played him it was 6-1, 6-2”, said Pouille.
The result means that 2016 will be the first year since 2004 that Nadal has not made a quarter-final of a Slam after a first round exit in Australia was followed by an enforced withdrawal from the French Open third round due to a wrist injury.
“Now I have a photo”, said Sevastova, who next plays the two-time former runner-up, Caroline Wozniacki. I put myself in a position to have the victor and I had the mistake.
“It’s already tough to play against one of the best tennis players”, Tsonga said, “but when I don’t have my knee, I have no chance to come back from two sets to love”.
Nadal, who missed Wimbledon earlier this year with a wrist injury that forced him to quit after two rounds of the French Open, had not dropped a set on his way to the last 16.
Fifth-seeded Romanian Simona Halep advanced to the quarter-finals of the US Open for the second straight year on Monday with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro. He will play France’s Gaël Monfils in the quarterfinals.
Edmund looked outclassed until he put together a run of three straight games in the third set that included two breaks of Djokovic’s serve. “I think they’re all unbelievable, incredible”.
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Pouille was having to fight hard to win games on his own serve without threatening Monfils on his.
