If Lucas Pouille’s countryman Stephane Robert had wanted to stay another day in Auckland, he’d just be another footnote in Heineken Open history.
Pouille, 20, made it to his first ATP Tour semi-final when he beat Albert Ramos-Vinolas on Thursday, thrashing the Spaniard in straight sets.
But the Frenchman wouldn’t be there if Robert had decided not to go to Melbourne to prepare for the Australian Open on Tuesday rather than take a chance of getting in as a lucky loser, for which he was next in line.
Robert and Pouille, both beaten in the final round of qualifying, were booked to fly out on Tuesday when the ATP Tour manager told them fifth seed Tommy Robredo may not be able to play.
“They told us there might be a chance to get in, so I decided to stay, Stephane decided to leave,” Pouille said.
“Bad luck for him. He had been a little bit stupid maybe on this choice.”
Pouille, ranked 136 in the world, then found himself playing New Zealand’s Michael Venus, who was ranked nearly 300 positions below him, and took the match in straight sets.
On Thursday he easily accounted for Ramos-Vinolas 6-3 6-2, showing the form which allowed him to beat four players in the top 70 at the ATP Paris Masters last October.
Pouille, who has a wildcard into next week’s Australian Open, now plays fellow Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the semi-finals on Friday.
“Tomorrow Adrian is a very good player. He is very confident, it will be tough, but I know him, we practise many times together. It will be a good match,” he said.
Mannarino, who beat Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-3 6-1 in his quarter-final on Thursday, has trained with Pouille this year but that won’t happen again before Friday’s match.
“We’re still going to speak together but we’re not going to practise tomorrow, we’re not going to warm up together, and we’ll try to concentrate on our match,” Mannarino said.
The third quarter-final was taken out by Czech qualifier Jiri Vesely, who easily accounted for American Donald Young 6-2 6-3.
Vesely will play the winner of Thursday evening’s clash between the only remaining seeds in the tournament, Kevin Anderson of South Africa and Steve Johnson of the United States.
