Cool Raonic fires opening salvo for Canada at Davis Cup
The Japanese word for “uncle” is oji. Or, more politely, oji-san.
Tatsuma Ito never actually uttered the word Friday at any point in his 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 thrashing by Canada’s Milos Raonic, but he looked as though he was thinking it in the late stages of the second set.
That’s not to say the 26-yearold Japanese mailed it in, but it was quite apparent by then that Raonic, the No. 6-ranked player in the world, was going to win the opening rubber of this Davis Cup tie, and he wasn’t going to have to raise more than a bead or two of perspiration to do it.
Raonic took the very first game of the World Group first-round match with a 202 km/h secondserve ace, and — as usually happens when the 6-foot-5 giant from Thornhill, Ont., has his serve dialed in — it was rinse-repeat after that, and it was all too much for the 85th-ranked Ito.
Asked if he’d ever encountered anything like Raonic’s rockets — his first serve registered around 220 km/h, plus or minus a few — Ito pondered for a few seconds, smiled, and said: “I think not.”
Raonic’s 19 aces, to Ito’s two, were a big part of it, but not all.
Even in the third set, when Raonic seemed to lose a little focus and got only 29 per cent of his first serves in, Ito struggled to cope with the rest of the big Canadian’s game, which featured a lot of soft but well-placed backhands and a total of 42 winners to Ito’s 15.
“It’s a big problem,” Ito said, of Raonic’s main weapon. “I try on every point, but I cannot touch. On his second serve, he also has good speed, sometimes 200, sometimes 180-something, sometimes into the body. So he’s mixed.”
Raonic was, let’s say, cautiously optimistic after gaining the first point for Canada, but no doubt he’s aware of the old hockey saying: “The series isn’t really on until the road team wins a game.”
And when Japan’s ace, Kei Nishikori, beat Vancouver’s Vasek Pospisil in the day’s second singles rubber, the road team had one in the books.
Canada, the home side, has a lot going its way this weekend — Raonic for starters, plus a solid doubles team with veteran Daniel Nestor and Pospisil, and encouragingly, the excellent fight Pospisil put up against world No. 4 Nishikori, the highest-ranked player here and Raonic’s opponent in the first of Sunday’s two reverse-singles matches.
But a win is just a win, by whatever margin, and Friday ended 1-1, with the doubles match certain to tilt the tie in one direction or the other on Saturday. “Being the first match of the weekend, you don’t know how things are going to go, so I’m happy with how I played,” said Raonic.
“So it’s a good thing and it helps and puts good momentum on our side, I’m very proud of that, but it doesn’t matter which three points are won. At the end of the day, you have to win three and it doesn’t matter which ones. Each one has exactly the same value.”
That said, he admitted it didn’t hurt to win in dominating style.
“I think it carries through. I think it makes a difference, especially if you’re sort of waiting on what might be happening for the Sunday match, I think you sort of send a message across.”
Raonic and Nishikori have met six times, the Japanese player winning four of them. But Raonic doesn’t seem overly worried about history.
Asked if there was anything in his game Friday that gave him particular confidence for Sunday’s match, which could either win it for Canada or save it for Pospisil, he said: “Things have been happening just fine, so I believe I can do what I need to do, and I’m going to fight for the point.”
Pospisil, after losing a rousing first set 6-4, was two points away from breaking Nishikori and taking the second set by the same score, but Nishikori rallied to win the game, then forced a tiebreak, and won it 7-5 to grab the match by the throat. Pospisil missed two more forehands down the line that might have broken Nishikori at 2-2 in the third set, and the Japanese responded by breaking Pospisil at love to go up 4-2.
But Pospisil kept fighting, broke Nishikori right back and despite losing 6-4, 7-6, 6-3, at least kept his opponent on the court for nearly two hours and 18 minutes. Raonic disposed of Ito in an 1:27, and will have three more hours of rest before Sunday’s match.
A small thing, perhaps, but one more plus on Canada’s side of the ledger.