Lucas Pouille

Personal life

Pouille's mother is a Swedish-speaking Finn.

2013–14

Pouille received a wild card for the 2013 French Open, to make his first appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam event. In the first round, he defeated American wild card entrant Alex Kuznetsov in straight sets, but lost in the second round to then-world No. 28 Grigor Dimitrov.

At the 2014 Paris Masters, Pouille entered the main draw as a qualifier. In the main draw, he defeated Ivo Karlović and Fabio Fognini to reach the round of 16, where he lost to Roger Federer.

2015

Pouille lost to Gaël Monfils in the first round at the Australian Open. At the Monte-Carlo Masters, he defeated Dominic Thiem to reach the second round, where he lost to Rafael Nadal. He was defeated by Gilles Simon in first round of the French Open and by Kevin Anderson in the first round of Wimbledon. At the German Open in Hamburg, Pouille won a place in the main draw via qualifying. In the main draw of that tournament, he defeated Juan Mónaco and Benoît Paire, to reach the semifinals. It was his first ATP World Tour 500 singles semifinal appearance. He lost the semifinal match against Fabio Fognini in two sets.

2016: Singles quarterfinalist at Wimbledon and US Open

Since December 2016, he has been managed by Ion Țiriac. At the Australian Open, the unseeded pair of Pouille and Adrian Mannarino lost in the doubles semi-finals to Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, after defeating three seeded pairs in earlier rounds. Pouille lost in the 1st rd of the singles event of the Australian Open to 13th-seeded Milos Raonic to register his third consecutive singles 1st round defeat in that event.

Pouille defeated 32nd seed Guillermo García-López and eighth seed David Ferrer to reach the round of 16 of the 2016 Miami Open, where he fell to Gilles Simon. At the 2016 Monte-Carlo Masters, he defeated Nicolas Mahut and Richard Gasquet to reach the round of 16, where he lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. In April, Pouille reached his first ATP World Tour singles final at the BRD Năstase Țiriac Trophy in Bucharest, where he lost to Fernando Verdasco.

At the Italian Open in Rome, Pouille reached his first Masters 1000 singles semifinal (after wins over Ernests Gulbis and David Ferrer in the second and third rounds, respectively), where he lost to Andy Murray. In that tournament, he was defeated in the final qualifying round but entered the second round of the main draw as a lucky loser when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew from the tournament because of a muscle strain. He broke into the top 32 of the ATP singles rankings for the first time in his career as a result of his performance at the Italian Open, thus ensuring that he would be seeded in the singles event of the upcoming French Open. Seeded no. 29, he was eliminated in the second round of the French Open by lucky loser Andrej Martin, after a first-round win over countryman Julien Benneteau. He then had a first round loss in the MercedesCup to John Millman despite winning the first set. He had another first round loss in the Gerry Weber Open, losing to second seed Kei Nishikori despite winning the first set.

Pouille then competed at the third Grand Slam event of the year at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships as the 32nd seed. He came into the tournament with an 0–4 ATP World Tour/Grand Slam singles career record on grass and had never contested a ATP Challenger Tour or ITF Men's Circuit singles event on grass. He defeated qualifier Marius Copil in four sets in the first round. He defeated Donald Young in straight sets in the second round. This was the first time Pouille had advanced to the singles third round of a Grand Slam tournament. He defeated Juan Martín del Potro in the third round in four sets despite being a set and a break down. In the fourth round, he defeated 19th seed Bernard Tomic in five sets to advance to the quarterfinals. However, he came up against 10th-seeded Tomáš Berdych and lost in straight sets on Court One. As a result of reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinals, Pouille attained a career-high ATP singles ranking of 21 on 11 July 2016. Pouille lost in the 2nd round of the 2016 Rogers Cup to Rajeev Ram and in the 1st round of the Cincinnati Masters to Nick Kyrgios.

At the 2016 US Open, Pouille ousted Rafael Nadal in 5 sets, 6–1, 2–6, 6–4, 3–6, 7–6 (8–6) to reach the quarterfinals where he was defeated by his compatriot Gaël Monfils.

Next, at the Moselle Open, Pouille (the 3rd seed of the tournament) reached the final after defeating countrymen Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Julien Benneteau and second-seeded, David Goffin. In the final, Pouille defeated number one seed Dominic Thiem 7–6^(7–5), 6–2, winning his first ATP title. As a result, Pouille achieved a career-high ATP ranking of 16 on September 26, 2016, surpassing Richard Gasquet to become French No. 3.

Pouille kicked off the Asian leg of the tour at the China Open. Despite being the no. 6 seed of the tournament, Pouille lost in the second round to eventual finalist Grigor Dimitrov. Next, Pouille competed in the Shanghai Masters, in which he was seeded no. 13. He defeated Fernando Verdasco and Nicolás Almagro before falling to eventual champion Andy Murray. Pouille faced off against Murray two weeks later in the third round of the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, and Murray won again.

At the end of the season, Pouille received the ATP World Tour Award for Most Improved Player of the Year. He ended the year with a career-high ranking of 15.

2017

Pouille started the season at the Brisbane International, in which he was seeded no. 6. He drew countryman Gilles Simon in the first round, and narrowly defeated him, 7–6^(8–6), 7–6^(7–4), after being down 0–5 in the first set. Pouille then played against Kyle Edmund in the second round, but was forced to retire in the second set due to a foot injury. This injury further affected him at the Australian Open, where he lost in the first round to Alexander Bublik.

Pouille then participated at the Rotterdam Open. Seeded 8th, he lost in the first round to Philipp Kohlschreiber. The Frenchman turned his season around at the Open 13 by reaching his third career ATP World Tour singles final, where he lost to French no. 1 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Pouille continued his good performance by reaching the semifinals at the Dubai Tennis Championships, where he lost to world no. 1 Andy Murray. He won the Stuttgart Open by defeating world number 32 Feliciano Lopez in three close sets. Pouille lost in the US Open to Diego Schwartzman in four sets.

Singles performance timeline

Current through the 2017 US Open