Raonic ready for home cooking
Djokovic stands in his way, but the Rogers Cup stage is set for a title win in Canada
There was a time, not too long ago, when the consensus surrounding Milos Raonic was one of limited optimism. Good player? Absolutely. World-beater? No way. Too one-dimensional, said his detractors, of which there were many.
He lacked fire in his six-pack belly, the naysayers screamed.
And given the competition in front of the lanky Canadian, there was simply no way he would ever win a Grand Slam title.
On that first point, Raonic has added so much more to his game, and the multiple layers were perhaps first witnessed this year at the Australian Open when he became the first Canadian man to reach the semifinal Down Under before ultimately falling to his new rival, Andy Murray.
As for that perceived lack of competitive fire? Well, there has been little in the way of evidence to back up that theory over the past 12 months or so, certainly not when looking at the fight he put up in notching the biggest comeback win of his career a few weeks back, rallying from down two sets to none to upend Belgian David Goffin in an All England Club quarter-final.
Which brings us to that other water-cooler conversation about never being able to win a Grand Slam. He hasn’t done so yet, but when Raonic met Murray in the final at Wimbledon, he served notice he is very much on the cusp of winning a Grand Slam title, which would put him in elite company with only a few men outside the Big Four — Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Murray — who have accomplished that feat in the past decade.
Whether you predicted it or not, Raonic is closing in, a 25-year-old mammoth-serving machine in the midst of his tennis prime and seemingly destined for continued whiffs of greatness — if not outright success — at tennis’ biggest tournaments.
And this week in his hometown, the Thornhill, Ont., native has an incredible opportunity to remind everyone — perhaps those one-time critics — who he is, what he is and just how good he can be.
As a Masters 1000-level event on the ATP World Tour, the Rogers Cup is viewed as one step below a major. And the tennis world is Raonic’s oyster this week.
When Murray, Federer and Nadal withdrew from the tournament, it opened a difficult can of worms for tournament organizers, who are crushed by the setback in star power, but it also provided a new sense of hope for the likes of Raonic, twotime slam winner Stan Wawrinka and Japan’s Kei Nishikori.
Of course, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, a 12-time slam winner and three-time Rogers Cup champion, provides a big roadblock. The top-seeded Serb has not lost to Raonic in seven previous meetings.
Djokovic would face Raonic in a semifinal if the seedings hold up. While certainly not discounting the world’s current best player, this, more than ever before, is Raonic’s tournament to win.
Ranked seventh in the world and seeded fourth, Raonic has positioned himself nicely for his seventh Rogers Cup outing as he aims to return to the final he reached once before, back in 2013, falling to Nadal after a historic all-Canadian semifinal showdown with Vancouver’s Vasek Pospisil, the only other Canadian to receive direct entry into the this week’s main draw.