One break was all he needed in the third, as he wrapped up the match without facing a break point.
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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.
“It took everything. I could not dream better than that”, the world number 25 said after his four-hour victory. Had the right attitude.
“I think it was the best atmosphere I played on a centre court”, he said of the 22,000-seat cathedral of tennis.
“I needed a little bit of massage”, he said of treatment similar to that which he received during his opening-round match against Jerzy Janowicz of Poland. “I need to improve in other things, but I am going to do it”.
Pouille may still not be well-known among the more casual tennis fans but the 22-year-old has enjoyed a meteoric rise up the rankings this year from a position of No 91 in mid-February and reached the last-eight at Wimbledon.
However, Pouille said it was too early to say whether the breakthrough victory would change his career.
“As you are approaching the second week of a grand slam you want to have match play and you want to have time spent on the center court before you face one of the top players”, said the Serbian.
Rafael Nadal says he was happy with his effort and prospects going forward this season despite suffering a shock fourth-around loss at the US Open to Frenchman Lucas Pouille.
After exchanging breaks midway through the fourth set, Nadal edged ahead again for 5-3 and then swatted away a forehand victor to take the match to a fifth set, only the fourth he has played since Roland Garros 2013.
A tiebreaker eventually had to decide the whole thing, at which point Pouille raced to 6-3 advantage.
Winning the final point proved easier said than done as nerves began to set in and the third of Pouille’s match points was wasted with a long forehand which came after a first serve had nearly hit the baseline.
However, with the court at his mercy, Nadal fired the forehand into the net, giving Pouille a 7-6 lead, which the 24 seed would not relinquish, hitting a victor down the line to seal victory. Anyone’s match to win.
I lost here a match with break up in the third and fourth and the fifth in the Grand Slam.
Nadal acknowledged his sloppy forehand had been “a big mistake”.
In a close match, Nadal made some uncharacteristic errors, especially off his forehand. On a 16-stroke exchange, Pouille delivered a gutsy forehand victor to a corner.
When it ended, Pouille dropped on his back, his tongue sticking out.
Thus, Nadal’s Grand Slam match win count remains at 203, the exact career total of one Pete Sampras, a man with whom he also shares a total of 14 Grand Slam singles titles.
Angelique Kerber of Germany gestures after winning a game against Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in NY.
Tenth seed Gael Monfils motored into the U.S. Open quarter-finals with a straight-sets dismissal of Marcos Baghdatis on Sunday launching a French charge at the year’s last grand slam championship.
In the final match of the day, Novak Djokovic shrugged aside any doubts over his fitness or ring-rustiness in an accomplished 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 win over Britain’s Kyle Edmund.
Ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also advanced, downing Jack Sock, the last American man left in the draw, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2. Monfils is quite a character himself: In the middle of one point, he pretended to lean over to tie a shoelace before quickly resuming play.
Next up for Vinci is the victor between second-seeded Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber and 14th-seeded twice Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
Angelique Kerber powered through into the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Petra Kvitova, while ex-world number one Wozniacki defeated American eighth seed Madison Keys 6-3, 6-4 to make the last-eight.
Tsonga meets the victor of No. 1 Novak Djokovic versus Kyle Edmund in the other quarter in the top half of the draw.
Kerber and Vinci are 2-2 in head-to-head meetings but haven’t played since Beijing in 2013.
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If Kerber reaches the final, then Williams must win the title top stay on top of the pile.
