Pouille stuns Nadal in U.S. Open fourth-round thriller

Rafael Nadal’s 2016 U.S. Open came to a close on Sunday, but not before the Arthur Ashe Stadium faithful were treated to a five-set, day-session thriller that lasted into the night. Nadal succumbed to Lucas Pouille 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(6) in a fourth-round tilt that lasted four hours and seven minutes.

As a result, only two of the proverbial “Big Four” lasted until the second Monday of this Flushing Meadows fortnight. Roger Federer missed the event because of knee problems and Nadal, who was looking like a serious title contender through three matches, has suddenly joined Federer on the sidelines. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, meanwhile, remain alive and well.

Following a split of the first four sets against Pouille, it looked throughout much of the fifth like Nadal would be among those advancing to the quarters. The Spaniard broke right away in the decider and consolidated his lead en route to 4-3. He even led 30-0 while trying to hold for 5-3, but Pouilled ended up breaking to get back on level terms.

A tiebreaker eventually had to decide the whole thing, at which point Pouille raced to 6-3 lead. Nadal fought off two match points on his serve and dramatically reached 6-6 when a tense rally ended with Pouille overcooking a forehand well past the baseline. The Frenchman benefited from a netted Nadal forehand before finally converting his fourth match point at 7-6 with a down-the-line forehand winner.

“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 reflected.

“I think he played a good match,” Nadal said. “He started so strong. (It) was a very, very close match; anything could happen. Just congratulate the opponent that probably he played with better decisions than me (on) the last couple of points.”

It was not the first time during this tournament that Pouille has pulled all the right strings in pressure-packed moments. In fact, he has been pushed 19 of a possible 20 total sets through four rounds and still refuses to lose. After taking care of Mikhail Kukushkin in five sets, the 22-year-old needed five to survive both Marco Chiudinelli and Roberto Bautista Agut.

Pouille now owns 25 of his 40 career ATP-level match wins this season and will likely climb to at least 18th in the rankings even if he loses an all-French quarterfinal contest against Gael Monfils.

“He’s in a good position,” Nadal noted. “As I say, he’s in a good position to give [himself] chances to be in the top 10 position, fighting for bigger things. But everybody wants to do it. (It’s) not only Lucas (who is) going to have the motivation to do it. There [are] a lot of young players that want to do it, too. I want to do it, too, again. I believe that Roger will want to do it again.”

At some point down the road Nadal and Federer may or may not get back to their title-winning ways at Grand Slams; that remains to be seen. All we know right now is it won’t happen in 2016. For that, Nadal supporters can point the finger at Pouille.

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