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

Raonic Off To Great Start in 2012

Canadian Milos Raonic has started the season off right by winning the Aircel Chennai Open today. Raonic came back from a set down to defeat Janko Tipsarevic (SRB) in an epic 3 hour and 13 minute match, 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(4).

This is the second title for Milos, adding to his win in San Jose last year. For anyone who watched the match or followed the live updates, you know you were treated to something special. Raonic had not been broken throughout the entire tournament and today's final was no exception. The Canadian bombed a mind-blowing number of aces (35) and hit a 228km/h serve in the opening game of the match. There is no doubt that Raonic needed all the free points he could get today as Tipsarevic was displaying some amazing work ethic in chasing down every ball. While neither player as able to convert any break points during the match, Raonic had more chances to do so than his opponent.

I got the impression that while the scoreline was incredibly close, Raonic had a slight edge over Tipsarevic. It was clear that Milos had more than his fair share of easy service games where Janko was almost completely shut out from getting into rallies. Conversely, Raonic was able to challenge Tipsarevic's serve more often and force him to come up with some big saves at key moments. It is often the case these close matches hinge on Raonic's ability to serve himself out of trouble. He was obviously able to do that today, which allowed Milos to take more chances on the return game. This is perhaps the most encouraging thing about the Canadian's performance today.

We know that if Raonic is serving well, he can hang with the best players in the world and give himself a chance to win. But in order to capitalize on those chances, it is important to be aggressive when returning serve to put pressure on the opponent. If you rely too much on holding, like so many big servers tend to do, then your sets are inevitably decided by tiebreaks. This is a risky strategy to say the least. While each set today required a tiebreak to settle, I could see that Raonic was making a real effort to keep that from happening. It didn't happen in this match, but this is an anomaly. Next time Milos faces a Top 10 player it may be a different story.

The Chennai final was a real treat to watch. Both Raonic and Tipsarevic were at their best. A tennis fan couldn't ask for more. Things look promising for Milos in 2012 and winning the title today will give him a lot of confidence heading into the Australian Open. The 250 points also gives Raonic a well-deserved boost in the rankings, and he may move into the Top 25 when it is updated tomorrow. It was such an impressive performance today that it is hard to be overly optimistic about the rest of the season.

I couldn't resist...

-multi