Healthy Raonic in fine form
Canadian getting back in the groove after injury setbacks
Let’s just say Milos Raonic had a nose to pick in his second round match at Wimbledon. OK, let’s not. But there’s nearly always some physical issue that rears its ugly head when the 27-year-old from Thornhill tries to get back into his tennis groove.
A shoulder, a knee, a wrist, a foot, a hip, a quad, an adductor muscle, back spasms — a litany of ailments that have plagued his oft-interrupted career and caused him to plunge from a world high of No. 3 in late 2016 to No. 40 this past February, his lowest international ranking since 2011, following a miserable season of injury withdrawals.
Had to bow out on the eve of Roland Garros six weeks ago with a bad knee, the Monte Carlo Open just before that, and the Queen’s Club tournament, a grass court tune-up for Wimbledon, just after. Strained pectoral. Walkover.
Fortunately Raonic’s stuffed-up schnozz was no hindrance to his play at the All-England Club on Wednesday, as he set aside unseeded Australian John Millman in straight sets, albeit each one going the tiebreak distance. That’s predictably Raonic territory.
“Just a little bit of a reaction,” he explained of his beaker afterwards, speaking nasally. “Like a little bit of a lung reaction, virus.”
Allergic to the green lawns of SW19, perish the thought? “Not that I’m aware of.” But he did, on occasion, appear sluggish during returns in the two hour and thirty-eight minute encounter.
That signature howitzer serve, however — 34 aces, topping out 147 m.p.h. — stood Raonic in good stead as per usual, as he advanced 7-6(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(4), putting the 2016 Wimbledon finalist into the third round for the sixth straight year, in a Grand Slam that has been decimated by early round departures: ten top 10 seeds falling, men and women, in the opening lap.
Raonic, who raised his ATP ranking to No. 32 by making the final of the Stuttgart Open last month — lost to Roger Federer but who doesn’t? — is seeded 17th at Wimbledon, his lowest designation since 2013, and on the opposite end of the draw from teenage compatriot Denis Shapovalov, who will be looking to keep in lock-step in his round of 64 match Thursday against Frenchman Benoit Paire.
“For the first set and a half I didn’t create much, especially on his serve,” Raonic noted of his contest with Millman.
“I was fortunate to get through that tiebreaker on two well-played points. I started playing well midway through the second set.
“I got stuck in that service game serving with the sun in my eyes but other than that, I think I beat him quite a few games to 30, had some opportunities that I just didn’t quite make the most of.
“But overall happy to be through and happy to be moving on.”
Raonic reassured that he’s pain-free on the heels of his most recent problems.
“Body has behaved. 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.”
Wimbledon’s grass surface, said Raonic, provides a nice cushion for those troublesome knees and the points tend to be shorter, with less lateral movement required. Though not the most nimble of athletes at six-foot-five, he does cover a lot of court on those long muscular legs and with a wide wingspan.
That lethal serve, Raonic’s bread-and-butter asset, clipped a ballboy yesterday. Less alarming than the ballgirl he accidentally struck earlier. “I think she probably took a little more of a grunt than he did.”
There should be danger-pay for any human being who shares a court with Raonic.
“Everybody is exposed,” he acknowledged. “It could be a judge, could be anybody.”
The towering Canadian points out that he doesn’t even tower all that much anymore as the sport has seen an increase in skyscraper men among the younger generation. “The difference you see nowadays from the tennis I have seen previously from big guys — and I consider a big guy 6-5 and above, I’m sort of on the bottom edge of that. A lot of the guys are taller than me, some are considerably taller than me — is that before everybody used to train the way a tennis player should train. People didn’t used to make individual training programs.
“The big guys sort of realized, ‘Hey, this is what we need to do to get the most out of ourselves.’ You see guys moving more efficiently. You have Nick (Krygios), who’s incredibly athletic. You have (Juan Martin) del Potro, who I would say is one of the better movers, especially laterally. I think I move OK.’’
Height doesn’t measure heart, as Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman never tires of proclaiming. And formidability of serve doesn’t necessarily blunt the all-round superiority of a Federer, a Rafael Nadal, an Andy Murray — who disposed of Raonic handily in that Wimbledon final two years ago but withdrew on the weekend, saying he was not yet fit enough for the gruel of potentially five-set matches following arthroscopic surgery on his right hip in January.
Has the human limit of cannonade serving been maxed out Raonic was asked. Can men possibly serve harder than this in years to come?
“I think it probably will be humanly possible.’’
But it’s a matter of physics, velocity versus control.
“You can only hit a ball from a certain angle so hard before it’s not going to drop in time. To serve hard, it has to be flat.”
And, like a flame-throwing pitcher, torque is the enemy, grinding down on bones and tissue. The human body was not designed for this.
Raonic next brings his intimidating physiognomy and killer serve to bear against Austrian Dennis Novak, another unseeded opponent who came through qualifiers, and took out Canadian Peter Polansky in the first round. Ranked 171st, the 24-year-old upset France’s Lucas Pouille, seeded 17th, in a five-setter on Wednesday.
Raonic and Novak have never met before; Raonic has never even seen Novak play before.
“I have 48 hours to learn as much as I can. But luckily for me, my game is always about imposing myself on the other guy, more so than adjusting to the other guy.”