Milos Raonic – Canada Fan Blog an (unofficial) blog about tennis and Canadian player Milos Raonic

Milos Raonic to face Philipp Petzschner in Quarter-Final at Halle

Quarter-Final Match Preview - Milos Raonic versus Philipp Petzschner at Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany

Milos Raonic will face Philipp Petzschner (GER) in the quarter-finals at Halle on Friday, 10 Jun, at 12 noon local time in Halle, Germany (6 am Eastern Time) on Court 1.  EDIT: Rogers Sportsnet will be broadcasting the match live on Sportsnet ONE and on sportsnet.ca (click here for live tennis stream on sportsnet.ca).

We can expect Milos to continue to try and play short points since he is scheduled to play in the doubles semi-final on Court 2 with Dutch partner Robin Haase about 5 hours later (not before 10:30 am Eastern Time).

Video highlights of Raonic's defeat of Kamke (GER) in 2nd round

Video highlights of Milos' 2nd round victory is available here: http://video.gerryweber-open.de/media.1168.2.113.html .  On display is some good serving - which is cool in any language - but you will definately get more out of the video if you speak German...

Video of the highlights of Petzschner's victory yesterday over Gimeno-Traver (ESP) here: http://video.gerryweber-open.de/media.1171.2.113.html .

Interviews - Petzschner focusing on Raonic's serve while Raonic still feeling confident and positive about his grass court experience...

When asked about Milos in the post-match interview, Petzschner mentioned (article):

I shall try to get a video tape of his match," Petzschner said, "I want to study where he prefers to serve."

Petzschner mentioned he has used the tactic of studying where players like to serve in the past with success, but I'm not sure how much of a help it will be with potential speeds in the 140 mphs. (full interview with Petzschner here)

Milos said that playing on the grass is special: "Just the way it suits my serve. I got a few more unreturned serves, that helps."  He mentioned he has enjoyed the tournament very much and will be putting it on his schedule for next year, health permitting.

He mentioned that he's going to continue to focus on the things he has control over in his match against Petzschner and when asked about the German crowd's support for their countryman he said "I can’t control the crowd. Obviously it’s very important for the crowd to support a national player. I would want Canada to do that for me, to make it a bit tougher for the other guy when I’m playing at home."  (full interview with Milos Raonic)

You definately don't have to worry about us cheering for you Milos!  I expect we will see unprecedented Canadian support at this year's Rogers Cup.

Despite great performance, Milos is probably not winning over a lot of fans in the German crowd

I guess this to be true because up to this point, more than half of the players defeated by Raonic (3 of 4 in doubles, 1 of 2 in singles) have been Germans.  Milos' singles match tomorrow morning will be against another local hopeful, although Mayer and Kohlschreiber are also in their own quarter-final matches, so 3 of 4 of the QFs have a German player - no doubt it's great for the tournament.

Broadcast / Webcast?

I'm not sure whether Rogers Sportsnet will be covering the match on Friday, it is not listed on their online schedule.  At the very least, it should be on court 1 so it will have to be streamed somewhere either legally or otherwise...  I will update if I hear that Sportsnet will be covering it on TV.  EDIT: This just in (via @Tennis_Canada tweet)!  Rogers Sportsnet will be broadcasting the singles match live on Sportsnet ONE and on sportsnet.ca (click here for live tennis stream on sportsnet.ca).  The doubles match to follow afterwards will most likely not be covered since it is scheduled for court 2...

- WACB