On Wednesday evening, before Lucas Pouille played his second-round match at The Championships, he enjoyed a video call with his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Rose.
“She told me ‘Dad, you have to stop. You lose, you win, you lose, you lose, you lose. Stop putting the ball in the net!’” Pouille told ATPTour.com. “She told me that and I was like, ‘Yeah, you will understand later. But that will happen again and again’.
‘Yeah, but when you do that you lose!’
“It was funny. We spent 20, 25 minutes talking and she was talking alone about this. It’s great.”
Pouille took his daughter’s advice to heart. On Thursday, the Frenchman advanced past Thanasi Kokkinakis, who retired in the third set, to reach the third round at a major for the first time since Wimbledon in 2019.
“That’s what I’ve been looking for for ages now. The last time I was in third round of a Grand Slam was 2019, so a long time ago,” Pouille said. “I think I’m just proud of myself for the way I’m working with my team, the way I give myself a chance to compete in this kind of event, and the way I’ve been working the past month or the past six months, year, two years, have been incredible. So I’m just pleased that it’s working now.”
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Most importantly, Pouille is thrilled to be showing his daughter what he is capable of. Before Rose was born, the Frenchman was one of the very best tennis players in the world. In 2018 he reached a career-high No. 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings and by the year’s end he was a five-time ATP Tour titlist.
But since reaching the 2019 Australian Open semi-finals, Pouille has struggled to find consistent health and form. This time last year, the Frenchman was finding his form when he hurt his back during the last round of Wimbledon qualifying, suffering a stress fracture. When he returned in September, Pouille tore an abdominal muscle.
The No. 148 player in the PIF ATP Live Rankings has not stopped pushing forward, though. Pouille is trying to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon for just the second time and has plenty of motivation in his daughter. After defeating Laslo Djere in five sets in the first round, Pouille received a video of Rose celebrating.
“That’s the first thing I saw when I came into the locker room. I took my phone just hoping that I was receiving a picture of my daughter, and she sent me the video. Honestly, that’s the only thing that matters at the moment when you look at this. It’s unreal,” Pouille said. “Now that she’s starting to understand what is winning and what is losing, it’s just great to show how happy she was.”
Despite being just three-and-a-half years old, Rose plays tennis sometimes.
“Every time she comes to a tournament and we finish a practice, she wants to hit a few balls. So I give her the racquet and we play. But yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see if she will play or not. That’s going to be her choice,” Pouille said. “There is no doubt she wins [when we play]. She cannot lose. Even when she loses, she says she won. So I say, ‘Okay, you won’.”
Pouille added: “That’s the most important thing now in my life. So obviously, it’s helping to see some positives when you’re in bad times. But yeah, it helps. I just want to be back where I want to be so she can also enjoy life on Tour and see me play.”
Gerard Tsobanian has managed Pouille since the end of 2016. He explained that Pouille has been on the top of the sport, knows his quality and wants to enjoy it more and make those successes happen again.
“He knows that when he finishes it’s never going to come back,” Tsobanian said. “He will be away from the courts and not feel again the moments like walking through Wimbledon and player lockers, on the courts, feeling the crowd. That’s what made him stick and dig deep and stick around and work hard again.”
According to Tsobanian, there is one formula that has consistently proven correct over the years and it is one Pouille has been following.
“When you work hard, the results come,” Tsobanian said. “If it’s not tomorrow, it’s in two days or one week or one month or 10 months that it comes. You have to keep working hard and the reward will come. So that’s what should be remembered — never give up. It’s easy to say but keep on working.”
Pouille paused to reflect on his journey over the past five years. For a man who has achieved some of the greatest highs in the sport — reaching the Top 10, winning titles and even defeating Rafael Nadal at the 2016 US Open — the Frenchman has learned just as much, if not more, from his toughest moments.
“I think that after tough times, you always have good times if you give yourself a chance to make it,” Pouille said. “When you put in the work, anything is possible, and you can come back in life in general. It’s normal to feel bad at some point. It’s normal to live [through] some tough times. But you have to do everything to turn it around and to find a better moment.”
Wimbledon has long been a special place for Pouille, who made his first major quarter-final at the event in 2016. When the Frenchman qualified for the main draw at this edition, he told his coach he wanted to go for a walk at Wimbledon just to soak in the moment and enjoy the “beautiful” venue. Now Pouille will try to keep the magic going against ninth seed Alex de Minaur.
“Every match, especially in tennis, anything is possible. We’ve seen that,” Pouille said. “I am going to recover as good as possible and give myself a chance to be 100 per cent on the court Saturday, and hopefully win the match.”
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