What Rafael Nadal’s Loss to Lucas Pouille Means for Australian Open 2017

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: September 4, 2016

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Rafael Nadal won't capture a major title for the second consecutive year after getting eliminated in the fourth round of the 2016 U.S. Open by Lucas Pouille, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6), in a match that took four hours, seven minutes Sunday.

ESPN Tennis captured Pouille's reaction after he finally finished off Nadal:



Nadal was able to fight back to force a tiebreaker in the fifth set, but ESPN's Chris Fowler noted one of the big reasons the Spaniard ultimately lost:



Nadal enjoyed a resurgence during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He won a gold medal in doubles with Marc Lopez and reached the semifinals in the singles competition, though back-to-back losses to Juan Martín del Potro and Kei Nishikori prevented him from getting a medal.

Those results, which came after an extended absence to give a lingering wrist injury time to heal, raised expectations heading into the U.S. Open.

He admitted during the buildup toward the final Grand Slam of the year that there wasn't much more he could do but play and hope the joint held up, per Peter Bodo of Tennis.com.

"The wrist is still the same," Nadal said. "With more rest, the wrist will not go better. The wrist needs to adapt again to the game, needs to adapt again to hit the ball."

Nadal looked strong in the first three rounds in Flushing Meadows, New York, as he didn't drop a single set heading into Sunday. But as SportsCenter noted, this is the fist time since 2004 that Nadal has failed to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal in a calendar year.

Ideally, the 30-year-old veteran could sit out for a predetermined amount of time and come back healthy. The question marks have continued to linger even after he spent some time away, however, which makes his long-term outlook harder to predict.

The 14-time Grand Slam champion isn't letting the uncertain situation stop h...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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