He was top ten, went through a deep depression and took refuge in alcohol: the resurrection of Lucas Pouille and his return to Roland Garros

Just over five seasons ago, it was in the top ten for a couple of weeks. Today he survives, as best he can, in this jungle that is the ATP circuit. It is in 670th place in the world ranking. And it also survives life, which is much more complex, of course, than tennis. This Thursday ran through the rankings no less wild than Roland Garros and from Sunday he will play the main draw of the second Grand Slam of the year. The protagonist of this resurrection story is Lucas Pouille (29)who some time ago knew how to be the great promise of French tennis. Until his head exploded.

A title in 2016 (Metz) in which he also made the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and also had the pleasure of beating the Spaniard Rafael Nadal reaching the quarterfinals of the US Open earned him being chosen by his peers as the player who had improved the most that season. He was born a star.

Three coronations in 2017 (Vienna, Stuttgart and Budapest, each on different surfaces), including winning the Davis Cup, confirmed his progress. He was there a fifth in 2018 (Montpellier). The results proved that he had the stuff to be a star on the circuit. His resilience was one of his characteristics on the pitch. Not everyone wins a final where they have match points against them. Pouille did it three times. Not everyone beats the top ten players six times.

This is how he settled for a long time in the stable cast of the top 30 of the world rankings. This is how he looked in March 2018 #10 on the planet. She had the game and the mentality to fight among the greats. In 2019, with her compatriot Amelie Mauresmo as coach, she accomplished semifinals in a Grand Slam. It was at the Australian Open, where Serbian Novak Djokovic put an end to his adventure. It seemed that the best was yet to come. But then the lesions appeared. And the wounds didn’t come by themselves.

“I began to have a darker side and to enter into a depression that led me, after Roland Garros, to sleep only one hour a night and drink. It was impossible to close my eyes. He was alone with Félix (Mantilla, his coach at the time) and he went back to my room to look at the ceiling. I was sinking into something creepy. I woke up with swollen eyes. Every morning Felix asked me: “You do not sleep?” I replied that yes, that I had an allergy to carpet, pollen, grass. I lied to him“, confessed this fan of the psg From Lionel Messi in a long interview with L’Equipe.

And he continued: “I locked myself up, I didn’t tell anyone. I was in a bad phase. And I made the decision to say enough. But, he would have ended up in Sainte-Anne, in an asylum. For my sanity, I had to quit. When you’re young and you earn money, you take advantage of it, you see priorities where there really aren’t any. I think the ego plays a very important role. The impatience to return to the top level throws you off balance”.

What happened? Injuries have begun to slow him down. They started shutting it down. First the back, then the right leg and then the right elbow which took him to the operating room and to drop dramatically in the standings. Thus he begins to move away from the lights of the major circuit. And at the same time his own lights went out. In 2022 he tried to come back, but it all cost him enormously. A broken rib delayed the return. This 2023 he had only played tournaments on the Challengers circuit. added seven wins in 13 games. He had barely managed a two-game winning streak once, it was like starting over. A slow start over.

“I had the opportunity to experience great emotions, play in the biggest tournaments in the world, make a Grand Slam semifinal, two quarterfinals, win the Davis Cup, titles and then go from that to defeat by the world number 300 in the first round of a Challenger. If we are not in tune with this, we cannot win. I didn’t have the necessary humility and it’s not pleasant to think that I lack humility”, opened with L’Equipe.

During the pandemic, as he emerged from the well and was recovering from elbow surgery, he started a company making hand sanitizer dispensers and donated part of the profits to the Paris Hospitals Foundation. Finally the sun came out again.

Married to Clemence and father of Rose, he concluded: “Now I have more maturity. I have my daughter. It’s more important than buying nice clothes or a nice car.. It wasn’t like that in the past. Today I settle for simple things. But, inevitably, your lifestyle changes. From Grand Slam semi-finals to Challenger first rounds, there are a few less zeros.”

The effort, it seems, was worth it. You have had the opportunity to play the quality of this Roland Garros. First he beat the Czech Thomas Machac. Then he eliminated the Taiwanese Tseng Chun Hsin. And this Thursday he got rid of the Austrian Yuri Rodionov. Mission accomplished. Then he will again have a chance in a big one. Precisely in the tournament that will honor the last French tennis player who won in Paris. Yes, in this 2023 edition that is about to begin, the 40th anniversary of the coronation of Yannick Noah, the rival Pouille has always dreamed of facing.