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AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 23, 2019

Lucas Pouille

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

L. POUILLE/M. Raonic

7-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You struggled pretty badly at the start of the year, also the end of last year. Having Amelie on the team, what did she bring to you to clarify things as you're entering this tournament? What did she say or what did you work on?
LUCAS POUILLE: I think at the Hopman Cup I played some good matches. Even though I lost three of them, it was a good level. I played against Sascha, against Ferrer David. Yeah, as I said, some good matches. We kept working hard.

Coming here the goal was not, Okay, let's try to be second week or quarterfinal. It was really to take step by step and try to focus on my game, what I needed to put on the court, trying to, yeah, do what I worked so much during the pre-season.

Q. Amelie, she obviously worked with Andy a few years ago. He said when he hired her, he had quite a lot of negative reaction from certain players on the tour, a text saying would he hire a dog next. Have you had any kind of similar reaction from anyone or have times changed a bit?
LUCAS POUILLE: I think time changed. I think he did it first, so that's why he received so many texts. It's a shame that it happened.

Men are coaching women, so why not the contrary? I mean, they don't get it. As I said again and again, it's not about being a man or a woman, it's about knowing tennis, about having the good state of mind. She's a champion. She's a great coach.

But, no, to respond to your question, I didn't receive any bad message.

Q. At the end of the third set, you started making more mistakes. Milos picked up his game. How were you able to keep your level of play?
LUCAS POUILLE: I didn't have to face a breakpoint for almost three hours. Even if I lost the third set, in my mind it was clear I had to stay focused on my service game, taking care of that, then trying to put as many returns as I can.

In the third set I had some breakpoints. He always saved it really well with a good serve, good points. Then he made a good breaker. Here we are. It's a fourth set.

I'm still leading two sets to one, so I don't have to panic. I really needed to stay positive, still doing what I did great for 2 hours 30 minutes.

Q. Back to Amelie again. She had some difficult times in her career before she won a Grand Slam title herself. Do you think that helps her impart particular things into your game that can help you well? Is there anything about having all this attention on your coach instead of your performance that's bothering you at the moment?
LUCAS POUILLE: No, it's not bothering me. I was expecting this starting with Amelie.

Then to answer the first question, yeah, as you said, she struggled not a lot, she won two Grand Slams, before winning her first Grand Slam.

I think she's bringing a lot of confidence to my game, to my personality, to my state of mind. As I said at the beginning, the goal is not to reach the final, the semifinal, the goal is to improve my tennis, to put what I work on during the practice in the match. That gives me less pressure. I'm just trying to focus on my game, not on the consequences and the results.

Q. You talked about stripping your game back to every point at a time. The fact that you came into the tournament on so many losses, does that help in terms of low expectations, low pressure?
LUCAS POUILLE: Well, low expectation, for sure. I think if I asked someone, What did you think I would do in this US Open? I'm not sure someone would have said semifinal or maybe more. There was some low expectation from outside of my team, even from myself. I was not expecting to do semis or quarters. I just wanted to take step by step. The first goal of the tournament was to win the first match, and so on.

When I played a good match, I had to focus on the second one, et cetera. The confidence comes back with victories. That's why I think I played a great match today, because I won four matches. The five-set match against Popyrin gave me a lot of confidence. I needed this kind of tough battle, yeah, to bring my confidence back.

Q. The key to this match was how you returned one of the game's great serves. What did you focus on in terms of game plan?
LUCAS POUILLE: High percentage of first serves on my side. I think I'm more than 65% during the match.

Q. For returning the serve.
LUCAS POUILLE: Oh, for returning.

Trying to stay quite close from the baseline. Don't give him so many angles so he can mix up a lot. Even though I took 25 or 26 aces, I put a lot of returns in the court. The first volley is tough to make, trying to pass him two times.

Q. You said last year you weren't enjoying the game, finding the fun in tennis. Tell us about your state of mind at that point or the difficulty at that point.
LUCAS POUILLE: I guess maybe it happens during career. I played tennis for 16 years now. It was the first time that it happens to me, that I lost that joy being on the court, lost the joy going to practice, practice hard. For some reason, I don't know really know why it happened, it did. Then you lose one match, two matches, three matches, then you lose confidence. It's tough to come back when you don't enjoying it.

I took some time to think about myself, about my career, about what I wanted to do. I said, Okay, you have maybe 10 more years on tour. Do you want to spend them like this or do you want to enjoy it, yeah, to enjoy playing on the biggest courts of the world in front of some unbelievable crowds, achieve some great goals, great titles.

I said, Okay, now you have to move your ass a little bit and go back to it. Even if you don't want to practice one day, don't do it. Just do it when you want.

That's how it came back.

Q. You said a tennis coach needs to know tennis and have a good character. Talk about what you find appealing about Amelie's character.
LUCAS POUILLE: Really motivated. She's focused on every single ball during the practice. At the same time there is a cool atmosphere. We're not too serious when we were on the bench. We can laugh. We can make jokes. Once we go and hit the balls, we are really into it. That's good to have the good balance.

I think, yeah, tactically, technically with LoÃ¯c, we are doing a great job. I think, yeah, she's just a great, great coach.

Q. In this tournament all the young guys, they did very well. Seeing them doing so well, do you feel if you play your best, you can just beat anybody out here?
LUCAS POUILLE: Well, it shows that a new generation are coming up. It's funny, because we practiced a lot together with Stefanos in Dubai during the pre-season. We made a lot of long sessions, three, four hours on the court together. Every time we were going out of the practice, we were saying, Wow, he's playing well, he's into it. So I'm not surprised he got this result.

Yeah, I think everybody can beat anybody now. Even though the best are still the best - Djokovic, Rafa, Roger, they are still dominating tennis - but more and more player are coming up. I think that's great for the game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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