The new kid hits Broadway and beats Nadal

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — It was classic Broadway, if a few miles east at Flushing Meadows. The new kid shows up and, right there before our eyes, shows up the older guy, the champion. You can hear the words from the decades: “We’re going to make you a star.”

Except they don’t have to, because Lucas Pouille is now a star. He went from virtual anonymity to instant fame in the time of a single tennis match Sunday afternoon and evening, if a lengthy, dramatic match, stunning the great Rafael Nadal, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6) in the U.S. Open.

Yes, a tiebreak in a fifth set that by itself lasted one hour and 10 minutes. Yes, a tiebreak in which Nadal, trailing 6-3 to draw even in a competition few in the bellowing, howling crowd in 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium thought Nadal ever would lose.

Yes, a tiebreak when Nadal had a wide-open forehand at 6-6 in that tiebreak — and hit it into the net.

“It was a very tense moment,” said Pouille (pronounced Puh-yeeh, or thereabouts). He is a 22-year-old Frenchman from the suburbs of Dunkirque on the English Channel, a relative unknown facing one the game’s finest, the 30-year-old Nadal who has won 14 Slams, with at least one victory in each of the four.

“After this,” said Pouille of the Nadal miss, “I was very comfortable. I wanted to take my chances.”

After this, meaning the fourth-round triumph, Pouille becomes one of three Frenchmen in the quarter-finals, one of whom, Gael Monfils, is his next opponent.

Nadal, a lefty, had been bothered by a bad left wrist. He pulled out of the French Open, a tournament he has won nine times, in late May. Then he skipped Wimbledon. But in August, he teamed with fellow Spaniard Marc Lopez to win the doubles title at the Rio Olympics and in singles there reached the semifinals.

Here, in the Open, he hadn’t lost a set. And the only time they had met previously, Nadal defeated Pouille, 6-1, 6-2, in straight sets. “When I was younger,” said Pouille, “I used to watch all his matches at the Open, the one against (Novak) Djokovic. I knew I had to be aggressive.”

So he was, jumping off to that 6-1 win in the first set by moving to the corners. No one then suspected we were in for a match that would last over four hours and finish with Pouille, after a winning forehand, flopping on his back in glee and sticking out his tongue.

That was his method of celebrating, not of mocking anyone. The fans, who as always in tennis support the best-known, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, had shifted, not so much dropping Nadal as embracing Pouille.

What they were witnessing hour after hour was courageous, enthralling play, and they wanted to be part of it.

“The crowd,” said Pouille appreciably, “was just unbelievable. You just have to enjoy.”

There was no enjoyment for Nadal. He was the No. 4 seed, favored over No. 25 Pouille. At times Rafa produced some of the heroic, athletic shots we know and expect. But too often, there were mistakes.

“I think he played a good match,” said Nadal of Pouille. “He started so strong. I fight until the end with. There were things I could do better. Had the right attitude. I fighted right up to the last ball.

“But I need something else; I need something more that was not there today. I going to keep working to try to find. But, yes, was a very, very close match that anything could happen. Just congratulate the opponent that probably he played with better decision than me the last couple of points.”

These battles between a familiar and successful player and an outsider perhaps about to reach the next level inevitably leave us with mixed emotions, delighted that someone new takes the big step but also distressed at the failure of a player so long at the top. When Nadal walked out of the tunnel after the pre-match introduction, the approval was thunderous.

When he left the court, he smiled, if painfully, and waved.

“Was a big mistake,” he had said earlier about his forehand. “But you are six-all in the tiebreak. I played the right point. I put me in a position to have the winner, and I had the mistake. That's it.

“You cannot go crazy thinking about these kind of things, no? You have a mistake. The opponent played a good point in the match point, and that's it. The problem is arrive to six-all on the tiebreak of the fifth. I should be winning before.”

That is the lament of all losers, no matter how much they’ve won.