Tennis Marseille: Lucas Pouille returns to victory, Gasquet close to the feat


The last success of the former world No.10, now 154th at ATP, dated September 22 in Metz against the Canadian Brayden Schnur.

This season, he had won only one match at the Challenger (2nd division of the ATP) in Quimper out of seven played.

Pouille, beneficiary of a “wild card” in Marseille, fought for three sets against Griekspoor, 60th in the ATP rankings and seeded N.6, before winning 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 , despite 10 double faults.

The 27-year-old Northerner won the Davis Cup in 2017, bringing the decisive fifth point against Belgium, and reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2019.

He will face in the next round the Moldovan Radu Albot, 97th player in the world.

The French Benjamin Bonzi (69th) won 7-6 (7-1), 6-4 against the Pole Kamil Majchrzak (79th) and will face his compatriot Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

Gasquet was almost there…

The Biterrois, who had pocketed the first set and served for the match in the third set, finally broke down to lose to Russian Andrey Rublev (3-6, 6-4, 7-6).

The Russian drew on his resources to overcome the French in 2h24 of play.

Solid winner on Monday of the Swede Mikael Ymer 6-4, 7-5 in the first round, the 35-year-old Frenchman displayed his full technical palette to counter the powerful strikes of his opponent, seeded N.2, who disputed his first match of the tournament.

Carried by the Palais des Sports acquired to his cause, Gasquet was broken when concluding at 5-3 in the last set and was overtaken in the decisive tie-break.

It was a match of an unreal level, Rublev said, exhausted.

Gasquet’s last victory against such a highly ranked opponent was in 2019 at the Montreal Masters 1000 against Kei Nishikori 6-7, 6-2, 7-6, then 6th in the world.



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