On arriving at the All England Club this summer, Lucas Pouille's game was as green as the untouched grass.

But, over the last few days, nothing has moved as quickly at Wimbledon - not even one of Milos Raonic or Sam Querrey's aces - as Pouille's grass court development. In little more than a week, Pouille has gone from being a novice on the lawns - he had never previously won a match on the surface - to a first-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist. And now that we are all living in a post-Querrey world, there's a fair chance he'll just keep on going. At the very least, he'll believe he can. If Querrey's third round victory over Novak Djokovic showed the locker room anything, it's that the impossible sometimes happens amid the hydrangeas.

When he came to London, Pouille's ambition was to win a match on grass, but that was last week and this is now, and since he's already got this deep into the tournament, why can't he defeat Tomas Berdych, a former finalist from the Czech Republic? This tournament has already seen the world No.772 playing Roger Federer on Centre Court, and Querrey beating Djokovic. But could Pouille end up being the most improbable tale of all?

It's not as if Pouille, a 22-year-old who was born in Dunkirk suburbia, has had a soft route through to the last eight, as it included a victory in the third round over the resurgent Argentine Juan Martin del Potro, a former semi-finalist. In the fourth round, he came from two sets to one down against Australia's Bernard Tomic, a former quarter-finalist here, to take the decider 10-8.

There are only two players younger than Pouille who are ranked higher than the world No.30, both of whom have commanded much more attention. But Australia's Nick Kyrgios (The Wild Thing) and Germany's Alexander Zverev (mooted as The Next Big Thing) are out of the tournament, leaving the stage to the Frenchman, the No.32 seed and not previously thought of as The Sure Thing On Grass.

When you speak to people in French tennis and ask how this has happened, one name that keeps coming up is Federer. Pouille's recent move to Dubai means he is guaranteed warm weather when doing his pre-season training or when practising between tournaments; it also gives him access to Federer, who has a home in the desert city.

The pair have practised together a number of times. Exposure to the sport's galacticos has been hugely important for Pouille. While preparing for The Championships, Pouille's coach, Emmanuel Planque, asked a number of top 10 players if they would practise at Aorangi Park with the young Frenchman.

Federer isn't the only tennis grandee who has had some input into Pouille's story. The other is Yannick Noah, the 1983 French Open winner and the last Frenchman to score a major singles title. While Noah hasn't travelled to Wimbledon, he has made himself available over the last year or so - whether at the lunch table or on the telephone - to help Pouille in whichever way he can.

Rugby has also played its part, with Pouille hiring a physical trainer, Pascal Valentini, whose background is in the oval ball game. But Pouille doesn't need to rugby tackle Berdych on the baseline to bring him down. He might just do that with his racket.