THE REMARKABLE REBOOT OF MILOS RAONIC
Thornhill star has a new coach, a new attitude and an unbeaten start to the new year,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA— Milos Raonic, version 2.0, is still in beta testing. But the way his Australian Open is going, it appears there are precious few bugs remaining to be worked out.
The 25-year-old from Thornhill, Ont. already is reaping the benefits of an intense nine-week off-season and is in the singles quarter-finals, with a legitimate shot to go further as he faces No. 23 seed Gael Monfils of France on Wednesday.
What’s new? Almost everything. And the speed of transformation has been astonishing.
For three hours and 45 minutes against No. 4 seed Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round on Monday, Raonic serve and volleyed, and attacked, and attacked some more. At times he did it too often, became too predictable, and the 2014 Australian Open champion began to read the play.
But he stuck with it, even when his lower back began to bark at him because of all the low volleys he was bending to reach and even when Wawrinka’s passing shots found their mark.
After the back spasms that scuttled the end of his 2015 season, the unexpected coaching change he made during the off-season and a premature exit from the International Premier Tennis League’s exhibition schedule in Asia in December, Raonic’s run — and his form — are unexpected, at least from the outside. After 21⁄ years, coach Ivan Ljubicic
2 left in November and shortly thereafter went to work for his good friend Roger Federer. Raonic still had Ljubicic’s coaching partner, the experienced Italian Riccardo Piatti.
But just before the season began, he added another former top player in the Spaniard Carlos Moya, once No.1 and French Open champion.
“Maybe the first two days you’re not in the most comfortable mood about it, but then you realize when you step back and say you have to do what’s best for you, and maybe this, at this moment, is the best thing,” Raonic said of the coaching change. “With a former player, they give you as much as they can, but, at the end of the day, don’t forget — as a player, at one point, everything was about you. And that changes. When you’ve been a coach your whole life (like Piatti), you never had it that way. You’ve always adjusted to somebody. I think it’s really hard to have a relationship with a former player as a coach that can really last. I’m not sure anyone has really done it, especially a former top player.”
Moya already is getting a lot of credit for Raonic’s success this season; the Canadian is undefeated after winning the tune-up tournament in Brisbane and now four matches in Melbourne. But in reality, although the two have had conversations, Moya has officially been on the job, on site and face-to-face, for just over a week.
Raonic said Moya told him that he could be more efficient with his game; and indeed, the word “efficient” has already become a staple on Raonic’s post-match interview vocabulary.
He has the tools, Moya has told him; it’s all about how he uses them.
Wawrinka professed not to be that surprised about Raonic’s relentless net attack Monday. Part of that was that the Swiss star already considers Raonic a very dangerous opponent.
Clearly Raonic, healthy for what he said was the first time since last year’s Australian Open, is comprehensively gearing up for a two-week assault, a Grand Slam campaign. It’s the logical next step for a player who has won titles and who has been as far as the semifinals (at Wimbledon in 2014).