The Serb has kept himself busy on the practice courts but was happy to cut loose against an actual opponent, making 21-year-old Edmund the target of his arsenal of rifled groundstrokes, angled volleys, pinpoint passing shots, lobs and drop shots.
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Fifty-two winners from Nadal whose attacking response saw him come out a victor on 35 of 48 forays to the net werent enough.
Pouille took Nadal to four separate match points before finally securing the match in a fifth set tie-break, with set scores of 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8-6).
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.
“I wanted to take my chance to be very aggressive; try to play with my forehand, and so that’s what I did [on] the match point”, Pouille explained.
Nadal acknowledged that his sloppy forehand was “a big mistake”. “But you are 6-all in the tiebreak”. Older Frenchman faced no break points in the entire match and he broke Lucas 4 times, enough for straight sets win, and he is still to lose a set this year in NY, looking more and more like a true title contender. He has also begun working with his own physical trainer who travels with him to tournaments.
“You can not go insane thinking about these kinds of things, no?” I fought right up to the last ball. “It’s something I’ll need to figure out at the end of the year”, Vinci said in Italian, with a laugh. “That’s it”, the 30-year-old Nadal said.
Pouille, 22, said his hard passage to the last eight, which included three five-setters, took its toll. “I think it is never easy to play a quarterfinal against a French guy, you know”.
“At the end it was full”. “I always say that the French is my home, but this one is my second”.
Pouille next tackles 10th-seeded compatriot Gael Monfils, a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 victor over Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.
Also through in NY are the French pair of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils, who beat Jack Sock and Marcos Baghdatis respectively.
Pouille, 22, overcame 53 unforced errors to advance to consecutive major quarterfinals for the first time in his career.
The top seed had a brief stumble in the third set before coming back from a break and taking the victory.
Nadal stated that although the Grand Slam season was over, he still has goals.
The world No1, who was bothered by a left wrist injury that may have been a factor in his third-round exit from Wimbledon and first-round loss at the Rio Olympics, had his right arm and elbow area treated during a medical timeout at 2-1 in the third set against Edmund, but Djokovic down-played it. “I congratulate my opponent, he played with better decisions than me the last couple of points”. “I don’t think you will tell him he tried to entertain”.
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“Sometimes”, Pouille said of the raucous crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, “I couldn’t even hear myself when I was saying, ‘Allez!”
