Roland-Garros: Pouille, a victory that "pleases" in the first qualifying round

On court 14 and in front of an audience who supported him despite the cold and the late hour, Pouille, who fell to 670th ATP rank, beat the Czech Tomas Machac (127th) 7-5, 6-3 and concluded shortly after 10:35 p.m. “I arrived at Roland with very few benchmarks, certainties, tournaments, almost zero wins... But I had worked hard. I'm very happy with the match I'm playing today because he's a very good player who had great results. I am very happy to be in the next round, ”added the 29-year-old Frenchman, recipient of an invitation for the qualifying table. This next round will be Wednesday against the Taiwanese Chun-Hsin Tseng (215th at 21). Semi-finalist of the 2019 Australian Open and ex-world No.10, Pouille has not passed the first round of a Grand Slam tournament since his defeat in the second round of the 2019 US Open. he has won the most matches on the ATP Tour since his defeat in the second round of the Masters 1000 in Madrid last May. This year, he has played so far only on the Challenger circuit where he has won only three matches for four defeats.

After several seasons marked by multiple injuries, he almost put away the rackets for good, admitting in an interview with Le Figaro in April that he had sunk into a depression which led him last year “after Roland, in England, to sleep an hour a day. night and drink alone. He has set himself the goal of participating in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Faced with Machac, he saved two set points at 3-5 before lining up four games to clinch the first set. A Marseillaise then resonated around the semi-buried court. “That's why I wanted to play tennis again, to relive it. It was watching Gilles (Simon) at Bercy (last year for the final tournament of his career, editor's note), in this kind of atmosphere, that it gave me chills. Playing a first qualifying round at 8:30 p.m. and court 14 being almost full for a large part of the match, with this atmosphere there, it was fantastic, ”he said. He then dominated the second set by scoring the break to lead 3-1 before concluding on his first match point with a powerful forehand winner. And he did not fail to throw kisses to the public before spending a few more minutes on the court signing autographs and taking selfies with his supporters.