2023-05-25 20:23:56
Lucas Pouille will therefore be in the main draw at Roland-Garros, for the tenth time in his career. The French won his entry ticket by winning his third and final qualifying match this Thursday, May 25 against the Austrian Juri Rodionov (1-6, 7-5,6-0). And it was in tears, as the emotion was strong, that he ended the meeting and greeted the stands that have carried him since the beginning of the week in his obstacle course.
Yes, Lucas Pouille is on Parisian ocher ground thanks to the invitation of the organizers, fell to 670e world rank, in the footsteps of the champion he was and intends to become again. He finds, very slowly, the taste for victory that he so often misses, the good feelings that have been fleeing him for ages. For five years he has been stuttering his tennis, chasing after his lost hours of glory. When Lucas Pouille was in the firmament, integrating the 10 best in the world for a short week in the spring of 2018, the twelfth tricolor to reach these heights since the creation of the ATP ranking in 1973.
The wounds and the gamble
The Northerner was then playing with the top names, winner of the Davis Cup a year earlier, and five ATP tournaments. In his head, however, he was already not quite well, a little tired of the nomadic life and the infernal rhythm on the circuit. However, at the end of 2018, he announced his association with Amélie Mauresmo, responsible as a coach for taking him to an additional level. Successful operation, it was believed, when he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January 2019. He had been swept away in 1 h 23 minutes by Novak Djokovic (6-0, 6-2, 6-2) , but that he finally reached the last four of a Grand Slam tournament was a first. Definitely encouraging.
Except no. Lucas Pouille gamberges about it, and as often, the body gets involved and soon dictates its law. A nasty right elbow injury is beginning to bother him. Fall 2019 is only brightened by her September wedding. We must soon operate, impose a long rehabilitation, watch the 2020 season slip by without much satisfaction, with in addition this pandemic which upsets the situation. He is indeed the father of a little girl in January 2021, but on the courts, new injuries, to the back first, to the abs later, decide the tempo. Not really hectic.
2021 is a lagging year again. The best, in 2022, is still waiting. In May, at the Masters 1000 in Madrid, he passes the first round, facing 26e world, the Russian Karen Khachanov. He doesn’t know it yet, but it will be his last victory on the ATP Tour. From the second round, he was taken out by the Greek Stefanos Tsisipas, one of those young wolves who, with barely five years younger, gives him the impression of being a senior at the end of the course.
Depression and rebound
It’s not far off, actually. Because his demotivation is such that Lucas Pouille really thinks about putting his racket away. “I started having a darker side and going into a depression that led me to sleep an hour a night and drink alonehe said last March to the daily L’Crew. I made the decision to say stop, otherwise I would have ended up with the madmen.. Game over ? If he thinks for a while about his retraining, exploring the padel track, he finds a semblance of motivation the following autumn, and decides to return to the path of the courts. With a new perspective: participating in the Olympic Games in Paris. He’s never challenged them, so why not give it a try?
And to get up again. Because Lucas Pouille has, over the course of his collapse, lost most of his sponsors at the same time as his lavish lifestyle. But as he explains, he accepted it, even if in a corner of his head, there is still this player who blazed in 2016 and 2017, certain to spin on an upward trajectory. Since the start of the season, he has only advanced on the challenger circuit, gleaning three small successes for four defeats. With these victorious qualifications at Roland-Garros, he can once again find the deep end. He crosses his fingers to go further. Finally.
#Lucas #Pouille #road #reconquest