French tennis star Lucas Pouille believes one of the keys in his big win over Milos Raonic was him not panicking and staying focused on the court. Pouille, seeded at No. 28, defeated 16th-seeded Raonic 7-6 (4) 6-3 6-7 (2) 6-4 to reach the Australian Open semi-final. Raonic got off to a dominant 6-0 third-set tie-break lead and eventually forced a fourth set -- but the Frenchman kept his focus as broke the Canadian in the 10th game of the fourth set to seal the win. '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," Pouille said post-match. ''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." After a disappointing 2018 campaign, Pouille appears to be headed in the right direction once again. The Frenchman admits he wasn't expecting to make such a deep run at Melbourne Park. "Well, (a) 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," Pouille admitted. Pouille also underlined that the new coach Amelie Mauresmo has played a big part in him finding his form and getting back his confidence. Pouille admitted during some point of the that joy being on the court, lost the joy (of) going to (a) practice, practicing hard." "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," Pouille claimed. Pouille plays next against world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Also read: Stefanos Tsitsipas: It was tough to fall asleep after beating Roger Federer<doc-sep>Pouille, who had never won an Australian Open match before last week, now faces a nearly impossible task. The final is within his reach. But to get there he must beat Novak Djokovic, who currently rules men’s tennis with an iron grip. Not long after Pouille and Raonic left Rod Laver Arena, Djokovic breezed into the final four, his quarterfinal match done in just 52 minutes when the eighth-seeded Kei Nishikori, of Japan, retired with a leg injury. Djokovic led by 6-1, 4-1 at the time, and had never been pushed. It was a gift. A match that short and stress free will help Djokovic, seeking his seventh Australian Open title, keep his body fresh at the stage in this tournament when he most needs it, especially since he had struggled through a bruising, four-set win over Daniil Medvedev earlier this week. Pouille, 24 years old and seeded 28th, burst onto the scene in 2016, with quarterfinal showings at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, where he beat Nadal. Last season, however, was tennis purgatory. True, his ranking did rise briefly to a career-high No. 10 in March. But he also failed to get past the third round of any of the major championships. He lost to players ranked outside the top 100. And as the year ended, he suffered through a string of early tournament defeats. “I lost that joy being on the court,” he said, reflecting on last year after his quarterfinal match, which he won behind strong serving and a steady dose of returns that left the 6-5 Raonic off balance. “For some reason, I don’t know really know why it happened. I t did. You lose one match, two matches, three matches, then you lose confidence.”<doc-sep>MELBOURNE, Australia — Lucas Pouille had lost every Australian Open match he played until he hired Amélie Mauresmo as coach. A couple of months later, he’s into a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time. Pouille, a 24-year-old Frenchman, will next play Novak Djokovic, who is aiming for a men’s record seventh Australian title, so things will get tougher. Djokovic was leading by 6-1, 4-1 and his quarterfinal match was less than an hour old Wednesday when eighth-seeded Kei Nishikori retired with an injured right leg, finally succumbing after three of his four previous rounds went to five sets. It gave Djokovic a spot in the semifinals at Melbourne Park for the first time since 2016, when he won his second straight title and his fifth in six years. “Feels great; this has been my most successful Grand Slam throughout my career,” Djokovic said. “Past two years have been a bit tough with the elbow injury and everything.<doc-sep>Women’s tennis great Amelie Mauresmo (second row, right) has coached Lucas Pouille into the Australian Open semi-finals. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP) Amelie Mauresmo stepped down as France’s Davis Cup captain before she had even started in the role. And if we didn’t already know why, we certainly do now. It’s because of a rising star called Lucas Pouille. Despite entering the Australian Open with a low profile, the 24-year-old is now one of the four men still standing after he upset Canadian star Milos Raonic on Wednesday afternoon. Pouille took a little bit of time to get out of first gear, but when he started humming he proved far too good for the 16th seed, winning the quarter-final 7-6 6-3 6-7(2) 6-4 on Rod Laver Arena. MORE TENNIS NEWS CHAMP CHOKES: SERENA SENT PACKING IN ASTONISHING OPEN MELTDOWN ‘I HATE CALLING THE TRAINER’: BEATEN SERENA’S CLASSY ADMISSION WATCH: HUSBAND LOSES THE PLOT AFTER EPIC OPEN COMEBACK Raonic saved two match points serving to stay in it at 4-5 in the fourth set, but not a third. Two-time Grand Slam champion Mauresmo previously coached British star Andy Murray, taking over in 2014 - the last time a woman took over as coach of a notable male tennis player - and was appointed as Yannick Noah’s successor in June. But after Pouille drifted from inside the top-10 early last year to outside the top-30, he came knocking. “They (other male players) should (hire female coaches). She has the right state of mind, she knows everything there is to know about tennis,” Pouille said post-match. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, you just have to know what you’re doing, and she does.” Pouille is the only man in the ATP top 100 coached by a woman from outside his immediate family. “A lot of people have asked me: ‘Is it different that she’s a woman? What do you do — can she come in the locker room?’” he told the New York Times recently. “But what is important is what’s happening on court, what’s happening to get ready for the match, and what happens after the match. I don’t care who is in the locker room.” Now, the young gun will face the either 14-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic or Kei Nishikori for a spot in his first slam final.<doc-sep>
Lucas Pouille took a leaf from the Andy Murray playbook when he hired Amelie Mauresmo to be his coach and it has quickly paid the dividend of him reaching a first Grand Slam semi-final. The 24-year-old Frenchman will take on Novak Djokovic in the last four of the Australian Open, having already ensured that it has been a good fortnight for female coaches. On the same day that another former Wimbledon women’s champion, Conchita Martinez, was in the support box of Serena Williams’s conqueror Karolina Pliskova, Pouille achieved a career breakthrough by beating Milos Raonic. He overcame the No 16 seed 7-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 and then paid tribute to the expertise of Mauresmo, who coached Murray for nearly two years between 2014 and 2016. MORE TENNIS NEWS DISAPPOINTMENT: HEARTBREAKING SCENES AS NISHIKORI RETIRES HURT AGAINST DJOKOVIC CHAMP CHOKES: SERENA SENT PACKING IN ASTONISHING OPEN MELTDOWN ‘WHITEWASHING’: RACISM STORM ERUPTS AT AUSTRALIAN OPEN OVER CONTROVERSIAL CARTOON “She has the right state of mind and she knows a lot about tennis,” said the world No 31. “It’s not about being a woman or a man — you just have to know what you are doing, and she does. “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.” Pouille’s improvement has been stark after a mediocre 2018 and a dreadful start to this season which saw him lose every match at the Hopman Cup team event and go out of the first round of the Sydney International. He had never won a round at the Australian Open in five previous attempts. Now he meets the six-time Australian Open champion Djokovic, who went through when Kei Nishikori retired with thigh problems 6-1, 4-1 down against him. This event usually throws up at least one surprise semi-finalist, such as Kyle Edmund and Chung Hyeon last year, and this time they are Pouille and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who today faces Rafael Nadal in the first semi-final.