Raonic stops sky from falling, for now
After Tsonga crushed young Pospisil, and French fans started singing goodbye to Canada, it was must- win time on Day 1
When does a 1- 0 deficit in a best- of- five Davis Cup tie feel like a siege?
When Milos Raonic hasn’t yet walked onto the court Friday evening in an arena that has just had all the air sucked out of it.
When the crowd knows there is no recourse for the host country if he happens to lose, because his teammate, Vernon’s Vasek Pospisil, has just been taken to the woodshed by France’s Jo- Wilfried Tsonga in the opening rubber, and all margin for error has quickly been removed.
That’s when it feels not like a single match lost, but like the sky is falling.
Feels like that to the fans, at least. Apparently not to Raonic.
The 21- year- old ace of Canada’s Davis Cup squad, the highestranked male player in the nation’s history, calmed a lot of nerves and comfortably held up his end of the plausible- win scenario by dispatching Julien Benneteau 6- 2, 6- 4, 7- 5 in a mere two hours, 17 minutes to even the Cup tie at 1- 1 heading into today’s doubles.
“I don’t think that [ opening loss] really matters at all, just like in a match if you lose the first set, you keep fighting,” said Raonic. “I do that on my own, and we do that as a team. As a team, as a structure, you don’t give up. So many things can happen. It’s for your country, but at the end of the day, you have to be better than the guy across the net.”
Raonic, who has the tall man’s lazy gait and an unearthly serve that topped out at 221 km/ h, smashed his way through on 24 aces, including three in the clinching game of the match, and 60 winners, to send a raucous sellout crowd — tickets sold, but a few hundred empty seats — home happy from UBC’S Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Given a better draw than if France’s world No. 13 Gael Monfils had been fit to face him, Raonic had to battle hard in the end against a determined Benneteau, who was cheered on by a healthy French contingent.
But he broke the 30- yearold, No. 35- ranked Frenchman at 5- 5 in the third set — as he had at 4- 4 in the second — then served for the win to set up the weekend’s last three matches in about as good a position as Canada could have hoped for after the day’s nightmare start.
“The two best players won, and both deserved the win. I knew it was going to be difficult, and that’s exactly the way it is,” said French captain Guy Forget.
“Basically, the two No. 1s took care of business today,” Canadian captain Martin Laurendeau said. “Tsonga played a flawless match and I thought Milos just seemed in the zone on his serve and everything flowed very smoothly.
“So we’re going to enjoy this performance by Milos, but very shortly we’ll be regrouping and planning for [ today].”
Whatever may happen in today’s lone doubles match, the Raonic- Tsonga singles rubber ought to be a beauty.
Tsonga versus Pospisil? Not so much. The sixth- ranked player in the world shouldn’t have had any difficulty — and didn’t — putting away No. 115, the talented but relatively inexperienced Pospisil who, at 21, struggled with his serve and made a raft of unforced errors in a 6- 1, 6- 3, 6- 3 loss to the athletic Tsonga.
The big Frenchman seemed to get to every deep ball, thwart every clever drop shot, win every exchange at the net, and with a serve that ranged from 200- 215 km/ h, he quickly discouraged the crowd, and didn’t do much for Pospisil’s frame of mind, either.
“It’s a good part of my game, I run fast and when I do I can change the way of the point, from defence to attack, and this is why I am a good player today,” said Tsonga, who ran his Davis Cup record to 11- 2.
By the very early moments of the third set, the knot of a hundred or so French fans who had belted out La Marseillaise pre- match were singing nanaheyhey- goodbye, and indeed, it was only a matter of time for Pospisil, and not much of that, in a match that was over in a tidy one hour, 51 minutes.
On the bright side, the match was so short, it should leave him plenty in reserve for today’s doubles, when — barring either captain’s decision to change the lineup — he’ll pair with Daniel Nestor against Benneteau and Michael Llodra.
“It would have been a bonus if I’d been able to pull off an upset,” Pospisil said. “I was expecting more of myself and was hoping to have played better than I did ... but tomorrow’s another day.”
“Today for me the goal was to enter with lot of intensity, to put on him lot of pressure, because today I am six in world, and if [ I can do that] at the beginning, it’s tough for him,” said Tsonga.
“He can serve better, he did a lot of double faults, and I think his average is not so good, so I think he can do everything better.”
Pospisil never had Tsonga in trouble, but he did lead the second set 3- 2 until Tsonga served a love game to tie it, then Pospisil double- faulted away the next one, and his one chance was gone.
“He’s [ No.] six in the world, I knew it was going to be a tough match — I’d like to know how many free points he gave me, I don’t think it was very many,” said Pospisil.
“I had a little bit of a nervous start, maybe just the first set a little bit, but I’ve played on big stages before — my serve just let me down a little. Tough to play against one of the top players in the world without one of my big weapons.”