Lucas Poulle had never won a single match in his career at the Australian Open. He also had not won a match this season, with a combined 0-4 record at the Hopman Cup and the Sydney International.
But it has all turned around for Pouille in a hurry, as the Frenchman suddenly finds himself in the Aussie Open semifinals following victories over Mikhail Kukushkin, Maximilian Marterer, Alexei Popyrin, Borna Coric, and Milos Raonic. He delivered his best performance in the quarters against Raonic on Wednesday night, pulling off a 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-4 upset. The world No. 31 returned serve amazingly and well cracked incredible passing shots one right after another as the steadiness of his baseline game forced Raonic to shorten points by attacking the net.
No plan worked especially well for the Canadian, who got the best of a tight third set but got broken at 4-5 in the third to end his comeback chances.
“I didn’t have to face a break point for almost three hours,” said Pouille, who dropped his opening service game it set one before holding the rest of the way. “Even if I lost the third set, in my mind it was clear I had to stay focused on my service game, taking care of that, then trying to put as many returns as I can. In the third set I had some break points. He always saved it really well with a good serve, good points. Then he played a good tiebreak.
“Here we are. It’s a fourth set. I’m still leading two sets to one, so I don’t have to panic. I really needed to stay positive, still doing what I did great for two hours 30 minutes.”
“I saw the way he’s been playing this week,” Raonic noted. “The past few matches he’s been playing extremely well. I knew he was going to make things difficult. I wish I would have just served better and cleaned up some aspects of my game where I felt like I was just a little bit behind.”
Next up for Pouille is Novak Djokovic, who was rolling 6-1, 4-1 during the night-session semifinal when Kei Nishikori retired.
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