Lucas Pouille won the ATP tournament in Vienna for the first time. He prevailed in the final against his French compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in two sets and clinched his third title in 2017 after Stuttgart and Budapest.
By Jens Huiber from Vienna
Yannick Noah has not been seen in the Vienna Stadthalle these days – the French Davis Cup boss would have had every reason to go to the Austrian capital. Unless Noah has already nominated himself for the final against Belgium, the 1983 French Open champion saved his association travel expenses.
Lucas Pouille doesn’t know anything about a possible starting place in the French team. However, his chances are not likely to have deteriorated after a 6-1,6-4 win against Jo Wilfried-Tsonga.
Pouille had obviously looked at the semi-final of Tsonga against Kohlschreiber well, and, like the German, acted very offensively, especially towards the backhand of his opponent. And the underdog was the first to strike, scoring his third breakpoint 3:1. Supported by a double fault tson gas. The latter looked a bit sloppy, similar to the first phase of his quarter-final against Alexander Zverev, and Pouille lost the next break 5-1. A game later, after 30 minutes was the first set of story. And left a helpless audience in the almost full town hall.
In the final on Sunday, Pouille and Tsonga were also two of the more successful players in 2017: Pouille had been successful in the Stuttgart and Budapest tournaments, Tsonga in Rotterdam, Marseille, Lyon and most recently in Antwerp. What both players lacked were the big results at the majors and the 1,000 players tournaments.
Tsonga started the second set with new balls. And a solid service game. The improvement of the last year’s finalist and winner of 2011, however, only lasted for a short time, with Pouille beating back again in the fifth game. Also because the current number 24 in the world moved much better than its more experienced compatriot. Pouille didn’t let his biggest career success be taken away any more, continued to serve confidently – even though he had to defend himself against another break at 4:3 after a 40:0 lead. Tsonga did not give the impression that there was a big comeback in him – even the support from the ranks helped little.
After only 71 minutes, Lucas Pouille was allowed to stretch her arms towards the hall roof. And not only are you looking forward to his fourth tournament victory on the ATP Tour, but also 500 points for the world ranking list and prize money of 438,505 euros.
For the two Frenchmen, they are now heading to Paris immediately, where Los Lucas Pouille has planned an interesting constellation: he will be confronted with Kyle Edmund in round one, which he had just defeated in the final round of Vienna. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga enjoys a walk-through – an urgently needed oxygen boost for the last few steps to the summit. Tsonga had described his chances of reaching the ATP final in London as being so advanced. With the final defeat of Vienna, the path has become even steeper.
Here the single tableau in Vienna