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

Raonic performs in straight sets versus 10th-ranked Almagro in Chennai, India Semi-Finals

First Set

The first break point came for 4th-seeded Milos at 2-2, but it went away with an overly ambitious forehand attempt by Milos and 2nd-seeded Almagro ended the game with a winner and an ace.  The "tall Canadian", as the Indian announcers keep refering to him as, then held at love before earning 3 more break points on Almagro's next service game at 3-3.  This time he did convert, following up with a hold ta love to make it 5-3.  Almagro's next service game hit deuce a couple of times before he held to make it 5-4 before Raonic pounded through the Spaniard with some more amazing serves including one at 223 km/h, the fastest in the match up to that point.  Milos showed again that he can pull out his best performance when needed most.  He succeeded in 92% of first serves and won 86% of those.  He won 14 return points compared to Almagro's 4.  He also hit 10 aces in the set compared to only 2 for Almagro - overall a very solid set from Raonic.

1st Set Stats - Raonic vs Almagro - 7 Jan 2012 (from atpworldtour.com)

Second Set

Raonic came out with a bang again in the 2nd set, including wining his second service game at love to make it 2-2.  The next two service games were comfortable holds as well, as Milos showed no signs of allowing Nico Almagro a chance to break him.  At 4-4, Milos capitalized on a couple of errors by Almagro and blasted more laser-like forehands to get the first break of the second set and a chance to serve out the match.

The next service game was a little shaky on serve, including mostly second serves and a ball toss that got away from him.  On a few of those rallies Milos hit some errors to give Nico 2 break points (his first of the match).  He blasted through the first with a lightening service ace and the second with an amazing backhand down the line.  At deuce, he did hit a forehand down the line a little wide, but answered to bring it back to deuce with another 2 aces to give him adv and match point.  With another unreturnable serve, he put away the second set and the match.

Game, Set, & Match (stats)!

Milos more comfortable holding his service games throughout the entire match.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that Milos dominated the match, but until the last game of the match, Almagro never had any chances to get ahead - it took only 1 hour and 11 minutes to put the match away 6-4, 6-4.

The stats below show that Milos gave one of his best performances today, especially considering that it was against #10 in the world and his buddy, Nicolas Almagro.

Match Stats - Raonic vs Almagro - 7 Jan 2012 (from atpworldtour.com)

Next Up... Janko Tipsarevic?

Milos Raonic's next opponent in the finals of the ATP 250 at Chennai, India is currently being decided on court.  Tipsarevic is leading against Soeda 4-0 in the first set, and up 40-0 in the current game...  So if it's not a final match tomorrow with Tipsarevic I'll be surprised.  Either way, the final coverage from sportsnet, online and on TV, will start at 6:30 AM again tomorrow, as it did today, to see if Milos can win his second ATP World Tour title!

Multimedia

More to follow once posted by the official tournament website...

UPDATE: Here's some of the media from the site.  There is no official video posted yet, but I suspect there will be soon...  Click on the photo thumbs to go to the full size pics on the tournament webpage at aircelchennaiopen.org:

The third image in the top row above is probably my favorite of any of the recent shots I've seen...

--wacb