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

AAMI Classic Preview – 6th-seeded Raonic to face Mardy Fish

Milos will be playing in the AAMI Classic this year for the first time.  He is seeded 6th ahead of Bernard Tomic and Jurgen Melzer in the field of 8 invited players.

His first round will see him play Mardy Fish for the chance to move on to a semi-final match-up with the winner of Tsonga/Melzer.  If he should lose, he will play in the consolidation round against the loser of said match.  Of course, Raonic and Fish have some history from last year, where Milos won their two meetings (first in Memphis and then a few weeks later at Indian Wells).  Mardy Fish was ranked 17 and 15 respectively during those tournaments, but both players have improved since then as Mardy Fish is now ranked #8 (1 below his career-high #7 ranking achieved last year) and Milos Raonic is ranked at his career high of #25.  If Raonic is able to defeat Fish again in Melbourne today, this will be highest ranked player he'll have defeated (though it's not an ATP tournament).  Mardy Fish did not play last week in the ATP season opening tournaments.

This warm-up tournament in Kooyong (just outside of Melbourne) is an invitational tournament.  Here are the rules as explained at wikipedia.org:

The AAMI Classic draw includes eight invited Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) players, seeded according to the ATP rankings of the week preceding the tournament. Four first round matches are played, after which the four winners advance to the semifinals, while the four losers are relegated to a play-off draw. The two semifinals of the main draw and of the play-off draw are then played, setting four new matches : the main draw final, to decide of the champion and of the runner-up, the main draw consolation match, to decide of the third and fourth places, the play-off draw final, to decide of the fifth and sixth places, and the play-off draw consolation match, to decide of the seventh and eighth places.

The tournament takes place over four days, with the four first round matches taking place on the first day, the two first round matches of the play-off draw, and one semifinal of the main draw taking place on the second day, the final and the consolation match of the play-off draw, and the second semifinal of the main draw taking place on the third day, and the final and the consolation match of the main draw taking place on the fourth and last day.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAMI_Classic#Competition_format

Milos is the third match of the day today, preceded by Tsonga/Melzer, then Tomic/Berdych, and followed by the final match of the day between Monfils and Roddick.  All these first-round matches play through in one session, starting at 11AM local time, which is about 1.5 hours ago (7PM Eastern) but play has been suspended due to rain.  A quick check of the weather forecast reveals they should expect up to 5mm of rain, possible hail, and wind averaging up to 50 km/h and then settling down to 30 km/h or so toward the evening.  It doesn't look like it will be a comfortable day as the video shows things blowing around the court and drizzle.

It looks like play is about to start as Tsonga and Melzer are warming up, so if there's no further interruption in play I figure Milos will take to the court around 11PM Eastern Time or shortly after that.  I am looking forward to the Fish/Raonic match given their match record from 2011...

--wacb