Raonic uses powerful serve to advance at Wimbledon
Milos Raonic’s big serve has powered the Canadian to another victory at Wimbledon.
The No. 13 seed advanced to the third round of the grasscourt Grand Slam with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) victory over unseeded Australian John Millman on Wednesday.
Raonic, who said he was battling a virus, had just four break-point opportunities in the match, winning one.
But Millman did next to nothing against Raonic’s serve, converting on one of two breakpoint chances. Raonic had 34 aces, compared to only three for Millman.
“For the first set and a half I didn’t really create much, especially on his serve,” Raonic told reporters afer the match. “I was fortunate to get through that tiebreaker on two well-played points. And then I thought I started playing well midway through the second set . ... But overall, happy to be through and happy to be moving on.”
The 27-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., leads the ATP Tour in the past year with wins in 73.7 per cent of his tiebreaks - and Raonic continued that trend in his second-round victory.
“I feel good. Body has behaved,” Raonic said. “Obviously we are very cautious with it, because it’s tough to ask the body to stop and start all the time. We pay a lot more attention with the treatments after matches, after practices, we are spending a lot of time just to negate anything from coming up. I feel good, moving well on court, I feel like I’m doing the things well. And hopefully my body allows me to play plenty of tennis.”