Lucas Pouille on Sunday outlasted 14-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal in a five-set classic to lead a trio of French men into the quarter-finals of the US Open.
Pouille, 22 and ranked 25th in the world, lived up to the promise of his quarter-final run at Wimbledon, emerging from a roller-coaster ride with a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8/6) triumph over the Spanish superstar.
The defeat leaves Nadal — forced out of the French Open third round with a wrist injury that also saw him miss Wimbledon — without at least one Grand Slam quarter-final appearance for the first time since he was a teenaged tour newcomer in 2004.
Photo: AP
Pouille came out firing, pushing Nadal back with an array of deep ground strokes and angled shots.
Fifty-two winners from Nadal — whose attacking response saw him come out a winner on 35 of 48 forays to the net — were not enough.
The taut battle came down to the fifth-set tiebreaker and Nadal, trailing 3-6, showed his mettle by saving three match points — the third on Pouille’s serve.
Then he smacked a forehand into the net to give Pouille one more chance and the French player pounced on it with a blazing forehand that kissed the sideline.
The 4 hour, 7 minute contest entranced the crowd in Arthur Ashe stadium, where Pouille recalled admiring Nadal as a youngster.
Pouille is next to face 10th-seeded compatriot Gael Monfils, a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 winner over Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.
Ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also advanced, downing Jack Sock, the last US man left in the draw, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2.
It is the first time since 1947 that three French men have reached the quarter-finals of one Grand Slam.
Sock, 23 and seeded 26th, had not faced a break point in surprising 2014 champion Marin Cilic in the third round.
Against Tsonga he mustered only five aces and was broken six times by the 2008 Australian Open runner-up, who has reached at least the semi-finals of every Grand Slam except this one.
Tsonga next faces world No. 1 and defending champion Novak Djokovic, who powered past 84th-ranked Kyle Edmund of Britain 6-2, 6-1, 6-4.
Edmund looked thoroughly out-classed until he managed to put together a run of three straight games in the third set that included two breaks of Djokovic’s serve.
However, the Serb star, who received on-court treatment on his right arm — just as he did in the first round against Jerzy Janowicz — regrouped quickly and closed out the match by breaking Edmund at love.
In women’s singles, Caroline Wozniacki, derailed this year by an ankle injury that sent her career into a tailspin, and Anastasija Sevastova, who quit the sport three years ago, set up a quarter-final duel.
Former world No. 1 Wozniacki, the runner-up in 2009 and 2014, downed US eighth seed Madison Keys 6-3, 6-4 to make the last eight in New York for a fifth time.
Sevastova became the first Latvian woman in 22 years to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final when she beat British 13th seed Johanna Konta 6-4, 7-5.
The other quarter-final in the bottom half of the draw is to see German second seed Angelique Kerber face Roberta Vinci, the Italian seventh seed.
Kerber defeated Petra Kvitova 6-3, 7-5, while Vinci enjoyed a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 win over Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine.
Wozniacki is back in the last-eight of a Grand Slam for the first time since making the semi-finals in New York in 2014.
Sevastova, the 26-year-old world No. 48, knocked out French Open champion and third seed Garbine Muguruza in the second round and she built on that victory in a last-16 tie that featured 12 breaks of serve.
Larisa Savchenko was the last Latvian woman to make the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 1994.
Before this year, Sevastova had not won a match in New York since 2010, and with her career unraveling, she quit in May 2013 to study leisure management in Austria.
She returned to the sport in January last year and that decision has been fully vindicated by her stunning run.
Australian Open champion Kerber defeated two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova as she looks to improve on her best showing in New York of a semi-final spot in 2011.
Kvitova served up a seventh double fault of the tie to hand Kerber victory having committed 43 unforced errors.
Vinci, last year’s runner-up, reached the quarter-finals for the fourth time, but had to shrug off a tendon injury in her leg to prevail.
“I love to play here. The atmosphere, the crowd, everything is great,” said Vinci, who knocked out Serena Williams in the semi-finals last year before losing the final to compatriot Flavia Pennetta.
In the second round of the mixed doubles, fifth seeds Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan and Max Mirnyi of Belarus fell to a 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) defeat to unseeded American duo Nicole Gibbs and Dennis Novikov in 1 hour, 17 minutes on Court 17.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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