Window is now for No. 3 Raonic
The table is set for Milos Raonic.
In his eighth professional season, the kid who was born in Montenegro and grew up in Thornhill, Ont., will finish the 2016 campaign at No. 3 in the world, behind only top-ranked Andy Murray and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 player.
A brutally close loss to Murray in three sets Saturday at the ATP Finals in London vaulted Raonic to the third spot, but also showed just how very, very close he is to becoming the first Canadian singles player of either gender ever to get to No. 1 in the world.
He had a match point on Murray in the final set’s tiebreak after matching the Scot shot for shot, angle for angle, inspiration for inspiration for more than three-and-a-half hours. Long gone are the days when Raonic is just about a supersonic serve.
Twice in the third set, Murray broke Raonic to serve for the match, and twice Raonic — once dismissed as a poor returner — fought back to break Murray.
But in the end, Murray eked out a win, and then on Sunday outpointed Djokovic in much less dramatic fashion to finish the season at No. 1. So what does it all mean for Raonic? Well, in a season in which he dropped his trademark sleeve and again battled injuries, Raonic has gone higher than any Canadian before. Eugenie Bouchard, before her career cratered, went to No. 5 in October 2014.
Montreal-born Greg Rusedski was as high as No. 41before he turned his back on his country in mid-career to be a Brit for commercial purposes, and then he went to No. 4. Raonic’s rise to third in the world nicely scrubs Rusedski and his Union Jack bandana from the record book for good.
Interestingly, Raonic won a single tournament in 2016, the first event of the year in Brisbane when he defeated Roger Federer. He went 52-17 and won more than $4.6 million in prize money. As far as Grand Slam competitions, he went to the semifinals in Australia, the round of 16 at Roland Garros, lost to Murray in the Wimbledon final and fell early at the U.S. Open.
In some ways, his rise to No. 3 was about consistency more than excellence, and also to some degree about the end of the Big Four era.
Murray and Djokovic are still at the top, but both are 29. The 35year-old Federer hasn’t played since losing to Raonic at Wimbledon and has fallen to No. 16 in the world. He plans to return next season, but his dominant days are over.
Rafael Nadal, meanwhile, is 30, was limited to 53 matches in 2016 and has fallen to No. 9. Most of the talk about the superb Majorcan these days comes from breathless tabloid reports on whether he has undergone a hair transplant.
Other than 23-year-old Dominic Thiem, Raonic is the youngest member of the ATP top 10. For six years, since first breaking into the top 100, he has relentlessly surged upward despite his frequent injury absences.
His strength lies in three areas. First, the massive serve, which got him on tour in the first place. Second, his willingness to work diligently at developing other elements of his game. The way in which he rallied, attacked and counterpunched against Murray on Saturday would have been unthinkable even two years ago.
Finally, he has managed his career brilliantly. Many roll their eyes when he misses another match or tournament with injury, but he has always been able to understand the big picture and realize rest and recuperation are critical.
As well, he has built a staff around him that sometimes resembles an NBA team, including multiple coaches — John McEnroe jumped on board for a portion of this season — and all the necessary training and support staff.
At 25, he is now moving into the prime of his career as most of his peers have passed theirs. Among the younger threats, a list that includes Thiem, bad boy Nick Kyrgios, 19year-old Alexander Zverev of Germany and Frenchman Lucas Pouille, all could theoretically surpass Raonic if he plateaus. The next highly touted Canadians, Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime, are just getting started in relative terms.
As high as he has climbed, Raonic still needs that Grand Slam win. At the very least, the Rogers Cup is a bauble to pursue, one that he came close to capturing once.
But this is no longer about waiting for a breakthrough moment.
Those usually come in the earlier stages of a promising career, like Monday morning when Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes sunk a tricky 18-foot putt from just off the green at 8:17 a.m. in chilly temperatures down on St. Simons Island, Ga., to win his first PGA Tour event in a playoff.
That was one meaningful putt. The 25-year-old Kent State grad pocketed $1.08 million and gets an invitation to The Masters next year. He’s off and running, the first PGA rookie to go wire-to-wire to win a tournament in 20 years. Now we’ll sit back and see where this all leads.
For Raonic, many great moments have come in Davis Cup, on the lawns at the All-England Club and in winning eight ATP tournaments. He’s already broken through. After eight years on tour, he’s almost at the top.
What comes next, in the next four to five years, will define Raonic’s career. He’s the best ever from his country. Other than Djokovic, he’s beaten all of the biggest stars at least once.
Heading into his prime as the Big Four slowly dissolves, it’s all there for the taking. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.