Lucas Pouille, playing some of the best tennis of his career, booked a place in his first Grand Slam championship semi-final on Wednesday evening at the Australian Open.
The Frenchman’s decision to hire former WTA No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo, a one-time coach to Andy Murray, is reaping dividends after a spell-binding performance on serve to knock out Canadian No. 16 seed Milos Raonic 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-4 in three hours and two minutes.
Pouille had never won a match at Melbourne Park and had made only one major championship quarter-final (2016 US Open) before this month. But on Friday, he’ll face either World No. 1 and six-time former champion Novak Djokovic or eighth seed Kei Nishikori for a place in the final at Melbourne Park.
Few have surprised more this fortnight than the 24-year-old Frenchman, who cracked the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings last March, but ended the year outside the Top 30. He struggled with motivation and confidence, and began losing. Pouille made three finals — the Open Sud de France, the Open 13 Provence and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships — last February, but advanced to only one semi-final for the remainder of the year.
“I didn’t really enjoy my time on court. You lose one match, two match, then it’s tough for you to come back,” he said.
He split with long-time coach Emmanuel Planque, who had been in his corner when Pouille knocked out Rafael Nadal at the 2016 US Open to make the quarter-finals. Last month, Pouille started working with Mauresmo, a two-time Grand Slam champion.
Credit Mauresmo, a fresh start in Australia or a new attitude from Pouille, but whatever combination has spurred his change, it’s working. On Wednesday, Pouille lost just 13 of his first-service points, withstood 25 aces from Raonic, and hit three more winners than the World No. 17 (62 to 59).
Pouille fell behind a break early against Raonic, but found ways inside the service games of the Canadian, who had powered through one of the toughest paths to the quarter-finals, beating Nick Kyrgios, Stan Wawrinka, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Alexander Zverev.
Pouille was hitting winners off of Raonic’s serves, and when he didn’t, he often turned the match into a baseline affair, with Raonic craving a chance to come forward, but Pouille playing the aggressor from inside the baseline.
The Frenchman took the opening tie-break, and behind a break of serve, ran away with the second. Raonic had come back from two-sets down once before, and he saved four break points in the third set to stay in it. In the tie-break, the Canadian locked in and won the first six points.
With just one break point on Raonic’s serve at 0/1, 30/40 in the fourth set, it looked destined for a tie-break. But Pouille grit his teeth in the 10th game to clinch his third match point chance, courtesy of a backhand error from Raonic, to complete his fifth tour-level victory in a row.
Raonic, who also lost in the Australian Open quarter-finals in 2015 (l. to Djokovic) and 2017 (l. to Nadal), had previously beaten Pouille on three occasions.
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