Lu ready for Canadian challenger
Raonic begins play today, Pospisil wins opening match at Rogers Cup tournament
Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu admits he’s a bit nervous about facing hometown hero Milos Raonic on Wednesday at the Rogers Cup, but he’s banking on the fourth-seeded Canadian having a few butterflies too.
Lu, who advanced to the second round on Tuesday afternoon with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Alexander Zverev of Germany, will have few backers among the expected capacity crowd at the 12,500-seat Aviva Centre.
“All the spectators against you is very tough,” Lu said. “But, I mean, this is what he should get because he comes from the country and he’s one of the best players right now.”
Later Tuesday, Canada’s Vasek Pospisil defeated Jeremy Chardy in first-round action at the Rogers Cup after the Frenchman retired following a right foot injury.
Chardy started to favour his foot after Pospisil went up 30-0 in the first game of the second set. Chardy called for the trainer and waited several minutes before deciding that he couldn’t go on.
Pospisil won the first set 7-6 (3). The Vancouver product will face Gael Monfils in the second round.
Raonic, who grew up the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, will be playing his first match since the Wimbledon men’s final where he lost to Britain’s Andy Murray.
Lu says that in order to beat the Canadian, he will have to have a strong service game, but he’s also hoping to exploit any nerves that Raonic may have as he returns home to a hero’s welcome.
“If I can try to make more balls into the court to play, I have a little bit better chance,” he said. “I have to focus on my service game to stay with him and to maybe give him a little bit of pressure and waiting for him maybe a little bit getting nervous from the tensions and give me a chance.”
Raonic, who had a bye in the first round of the Rogers Cup, is 2-0 against the 32-year-old Lu, with his last victory coming in 2014 in Monte Carlo. Lu said he’s noticed a lot of improvement in Raonic’s game recently.
“He getting more stable from the baseline,” Lu said. “He plays all different kind of game. He can come in, he’s making (things) difficult.”
In men’s doubles action, Vancouver’s Philip Bester and Adil Shamasdin of Toronto got past world No. 1 singles player Novak Djokovic and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia 7-5, 4-6, 10-2.
Tied at 30-30 in the second set, Bester double-faulted to give the Serbs break point before double faulting again to give Djokovic and Zimonjic the set.
“I wanted to keep things interesting for the crowd,” Bester joked. “That’s just sport, that’s tennis, that kind of stuff happens to me, it happens to everybody and as soon as we went to the change-over, the most important thing for me personally was to have a short memory about it and also to communicate with Adil that I was ready to move on to the tiebreaker.”
Bester and Shamasdin will next play South Africa’s Raven Klaasen and American Rajeev Ram.
Lu, ranked 70th in the world, improved to 3-3 on the ATP World Tour circuit this season with his victory over Zverev. He made headlines at Wimbledon in 2010 when he beat American Andy Roddick in an epic fiveset thriller.
The Taiwanese player was ousted in the first round of the Rogers Cup last year by Vancouver’s Vasek Pospisil.
After right elbow surgery delayed the start of his season, he’s gone on to lose to Djokovic in the first round of Roland Garros and Murray in the second round of Wimbledon.
In other singles action, Gael Monfils of France defeated Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-3, 6-3 while fifth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic beat Croatia’s Borna Coric 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in second round play.