Pouille: 'I'm not done yet'

Andrew Eichenholz/ATP Tour

Nine months ago, Lucas Pouille’s comeback appeared in full flight. The former No. 10 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, then No. 675, had qualified for Roland Garros and won a match in the main draw. One month later, he won his first two qualifying matches at Wimbledon and claimed the first set in the final round against Tomas Machac.

“During the match. I won the first set. Second point of the second set, it was on the backhand side. I slipped and I felt something bad in my back. I knew right away that I was done. I kept going for two games but it was impossible,” Pouille told ATPTour.com.

“I felt like a knife in my back. I had the beginning of a stress fracture in the lower back. So I had to stop for two-and-a-half months.”

The Frenchman wanted to return at the US Open but was not ready. Instead, he came back on home soil in September at an ATP Challenger Tour event in Rennes. In the first game of his quarter-final, he tore an abdominal muscle.

That has been the story of Pouille’s recent seasons. A five-time ATP Tour titlist who owns a win against Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray among others, the 30-year-old has struggled to find consistent patches of full fitness since reaching the 2019 Australian Open semi-finals.

But those setbacks have not quelled Pouille’s determination. He has continued to prove his level on the biggest stages. The World No. 273 qualified for the BNP Paribas Open and defeated Daniel Altmaier in the first round to earn a showdown against 2019 Nitto ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“It’s great. I’ve proved myself, I’m convinced that’s where I belong. That's where I want to be the next few months. That's where I want my ranking to be,” Pouille said. “And that next year I don't [want to] need any wild card to participate in this kind of tournament and that I can play every week [against] those guys at this level and to compete with them. I think that's what I want.”

Pouille has played on the sport’s biggest stages. But while his colleagues have been in Australia to begin the past two seasons, he has been in Nonthaburi, Thailand, to try to earn enough points to work his way back up the PIF ATP Rankings.

It has not always been easy to push through the difficult times, especially when dealing with injuries.

“The first few days are tough. You feel really, really sad because you know how it is to go back to the doctors and physio every day to do all this rehab and all this work to try to come back as fast as possible. But then after a few days, you have a new goal. You know the date you want to come back, the date you want to be ready to play,” Pouille said.

“And that’s what drives you every day and then you practise even though you cannot play. You do physical sessions, upper body, lower body, depends what you have as an injury. It keeps you busy and that’s important because that's where when you have nothing to do, that's where you start to think a lot. And that's what happened for me the last four years. It has been like this a lot.”

One thing has kept Pouille motivated.

“The love and the passion for the sport. I lost it years ago, the love of tennis, the passion about it,” Pouille said. “But now every time I'm on court I'm really enjoying it. I really have to practise hard to try to push the limits. And I want to prove to myself that I'm not done yet and that I still have things to do in my career.”

The five-time Indian Wells competitor will hope to continue with that pursuit on Friday when he plays 11th seed Tsitsipas, who leads their Lexus ATP Head2Head series 3-0.

“That's what I want, to play on the big stage against the best players in the world and Stefanos is one of them for many years now,” Pouille said. “It's a great opportunity to face him. And hopefully we can play a great match and a great battle, and then we will see how it goes.”

Pouille’s immediate goal is to return to the Top 100 “as soon as possible”. He knows that will take plenty of winning and good results. But the Frenchman is determined.

“The first person I want to prove [anything to] is myself. That's why I'm working hard every day. That's why I'm practising very hard to come back, it's to be here, to play these kinds of tournaments,” Pouille said. “That's where you want to be. That's what tennis is about, especially in this tournament, which is one of the best and most beautiful tournaments of the year. I’m very happy to have this level this week and hopefully I can keep going.”