What makes Pouille tick? 'This little thing in the stomach'

Lucas Pouille knows what it is like to win ATP Tour titles, reach the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings and compete in a major semi-final. The adrenaline of a match day is nothing new for the Frenchman. 

In 2017, Pouille held his nerve to secure the Davis Cup title for France in front of a raucous home crowd. It was a final, all-or-nothing deciding rubber against Belgium.

Now ranked World No. 142 and competing mostly on the ATP Challenger Tour this season, Pouille continues to live for that thrill of going toe to toe against another competitor.

“Before the match, in the morning you wake up and you have this little thing in the stomach. You know it’s a match day. You don’t wake up like the other days,” Pouille told ATPTour.com at this week’s Saint-Tropez Open, an ATP Challenger Tour 125 event. “Once I step on court, they are there for sure, but I take it as a positive. For me, it’s just great to have this kind of stress.”

In May, Pouille won his first title across all levels in five years at the Mauthausen Challenger. It was an important moment for Pouille, who has been plagued with injuries. He underwent elbow surgery in 2020 and last year at Wimbledon, he suffered a stress fracture in his lower back.

In his first tournament back last September, Pouille tore an abdominal muscle that forced him to shut down his season in September.

Claiming his second ATP Challenger Tour title on the Austrian clay this year was a pivotal turning point.

“It proved to myself that I was able to win this kind of tournament. I was able to play five matches in a week. It gave me a lot of confidence in my body and my capacity as well, to play day after day,” Pouille said. “It was the first time I was finishing the week on a victory in awhile, for five years actually, so it meant a lot.”

Ladies and gentleman, Lucas Pouille is back ?

The former World No. 10 wins his first title since 2019 with a dominant 6-3, 6-3 victory over Kovalik in Mauthausen!#ATPChallenger | @la_pouille pic.twitter.com/O1CaS8Ycaf

Pouille later advanced through qualifying at Wimbledon, where he competed in the main draw of the grass-court major for the first time since 2021. A quarter-finalist at the All England Club in 2016, Pouille began this year's tournament by winning a five-setter against Laslo Djere. Pouille reached the third round, but withdrew before his clash against ninth seed Alex de Minaur.

The Frenchman had suffered another abdominal strain, though in a different area than last year’s injury.

“I felt abdominal [pain] the first day against Djere. Finally I managed to win, it was okay. After that I checked with the doctor that was there for the French team. I tore my abs a few centimetres. It was a Grade 2," Pouille said.

Making the third round was already a huge accomplishment, considering that Pouille’s team advised him to retire in the second round against Thanasi Kokkinakis, who suffered an injury of his own. The Australian retired in the third set.

“I decided to go on court because I wanted to play so much. I decided to serve a way where I was able to control the pain,” Pouille said. “If I got broken in the second set and started to lose two sets to love, then yes, I think I would’ve been thinking to stop.

“Then after the match, it was too much and the [doctor] said, ‘If you play now, you are going to have to stop for more than six weeks because it’s going to be too much'.”

There are positive signs for Pouille, whose goal is to "make the main-draw cutoff for the Australian Open". He is on pace to play more than 50 matches at all levels this season, a feat he has not accomplished in a single year since 2017.

“It’s great considering that I didn’t play in July [after Wimbledon], almost nothing in August and June either, except the qualifying at Wimbledon,” Pouille said. “It means every time I step on court at a tournament, I win many matches, so that’s a good thing. I cross my fingers that I stay healthy until the end of the season and play as many matches as I can.”

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