Fifty-two winners from Nadal whose attacking response saw him come out a victor on 35 of 48 forays to the net werent enough.
Advertisement
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.
But nerves also got to Nadal, who netted a routine forehand to give Pouille one final match point, which he clinched with a forehand blast down-the-line from behind the baseline.
After surviving a break point at 1-1 in the opening set, Pouille fell behind in his next service game as Monfils took an early grip on the match, sealing the set with a superb cross-court forehand.
Despite showing promise to make it big at the highest stage, Monfils has struggled to close out big matches in his career.
“But you are 6-all in the tiebreak”.
“It was one of the greatest matches I play”, Monfils said. “That’s it. You can not go insane thinking about these kind of things, no?” “I dive because I want to win the point”, he said.
“I fight until the end”, Nadal said following his defeat.
“In the ‘breaker, I went for a little bit more”, Williams said, “but I didn’t put the ball in enough”.
“Was a big mistake, yeah”, Nadal said.
The four-hour, seven-minute contest entranced the crowd in Arthur Ashe stadium. I think it is never easy to play a quarter-final against a French guy.
“At the end it was full”.
“But I’m trying to not put pressure on myself, because I know I have to win a few more matches to reach the No. 1”.
No. 2-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany, who is making serious push for the top ranking, got through a tight first set and eased through the second against last year’s finalist, Roberta Vinci of Italy, winning, 7-5, 6-0, in a quarterfinal.
Pouille never had been to a Grand Slam quarterfinal until Wimbledon a couple of months ago, but it was Nadal who blinked at 6-6.
Sock, seeded 26th, had not faced a break point in 2014 champion Marin Cilic in the third round.
If Monfils keeps playing his other-worldly athletic yet punishing style of tennis he had on display Tuesday, it could lead to the first Frenchman raising a Grand Slam singles championship trophy since Yannick Noah – father of new Knicks center Joakim – won the 1983 French Open.
Tsonga next faces world No1 and defending champion Novak Djokovic, who powered past 84th-ranked Kyle Edmund of Britain 6-2 6-1 6-4. Theres things I could do better, but I had the right attitude. “I don’t think you will tell him he tried to entertain”. No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and No. 10 Gael Monfils vs. “It was a tough match”. Even with the extra rest, however, he required on-court treatment on his right arm the same one he had treated during his scrappy first-round victory over Jerzy Janowicz.
DISBELIEF: Frenchman Lucas Pouille celebrates his stunning win over Rafa Nadal in a five-set classic on Sunday.
Advertisement
NEW YORK-Two trips to Grand Slam quarter-finals-including Sunday’s US Open upset of 14-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal-has taken any lingering sting out of Lucas Pouille’s failure to make France’s Olympic team.
