AUSTRALIAN OPEN - Enormous disillusion for Lucas Pouille.

The Frenchman, 16 seed, was eliminated in Melbourne by Kazakh Alexander Bublik, World number 207, who played the first match of his career in Grand Slam. Visibly touched on the foot, Apulia lost in four sets (6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4).

It's a hell of a cold shower for Lucas Pouille and French tennis. A great revelation of the 2016 season, a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon and then at the US Open, the Northerner experienced a big halt this Monday in Melbourne. For him, the Australian Open is already over. He lost in the first round against the young Kazakh Alexander Bublik. At 19, he played the first game of his career in a major tournament. Bublik is the winner in four sets (6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4) of a Lucas Pouille visibly in delicacy with his right foot.

Totally disjointed, the meeting left a somewhat odd feeling, between a player not 100%, and another full of talent but logically inconsistent enough. Bublik has a great first, and strikes hard on both sides. We shall see him again, no doubt. Its merit will also have been keeping the thread, at least most of the time. A quick break in each of the last two sets placed him in a comfortable position. And if he shook a bit at the moment of concluding by releasing one of his two breaks ahead of time in the fourth set, he finished on a last game almost perfect.

Decidedly, the Australian Open did not really succeed at Lucas Puglia. For his fourth participation, he disappeared a fourth time in the first round. But the context is quite different this time. In 2014, Pouille was 19 years old and discovered the high level. In the last two years, he had been the victim of a ruthless draw, with Monfils then Raonic. This time, strong of his new status of seed, he had the opportunity, to the absolute minimum, to open his counter. He only spent 103 minutes on the court. That's saying he hoped for something else ...

This match, Lucas Pouille may have lost it from January 4. In Brisbane, he was forced to abandon in the round of 16 against Kyle Edmund. Clearly, he was not yet fully recovered from this injury. While he recovered well, the pain woke up during a training session in Melbourne. "I was expecting a bit, but I wanted to try, even at 30 or 40%." He was a very special player, he could start making mistakes. The spirit of giving up, "he said.

In the anonymity of court 13, the Frenchman delivered the match he could. He first took a 6-0 in 18 minutes that did not bode well. He probably would have lost in three heats if Bublik had not started to commit errors in the second set.