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

On the loss to Hewitt

We knew it would be a tough ask for Milos to take on a past US Open and Wimbledon champion in front of a boisterous home crowd. When the draw was released, a showdown with a former World No.1 player seemed to be the most likely result in the third round. With Roddick sustaining an injury and retiring against Hewitt, the match was set. Had Roddick been able to stay healthy and finish the match there probably (in my estimation, at least) would have been a different outcome. The American looked great in the first set and showed no signs of slowing down until he took an awkward step and hurt himself. I think a healthy Roddick might have been an even tougher third round opponent for Raonic, but that's not how things played out.

The game plan appeared to be working for Raonic in the first set. There were some misses, but the forehand was on fire and the backhand proved to be effective at times. As Hewitt began to figure out his opponent and improve his return game, Raonic wasn't able step it up on serve and earn more free points. Milos was hitting at just 53% on his first serve. Against an accomplished counterpuncher like Hewitt it was only a matter of time until the inconsistency caught up with Raonic. As Tom Tebbutt notes in his blog, "a slight uptick from that number and the match could easily have turned his way."

That being said, I think the aggressive play from Milos was the right approach. When Raonic was hitting the ball cleanly, Hewitt didn't have an answer. The downside of going for your shots is always the number of unforced errors. Again, if Raonic could have reigned the errors in by even the slightest amount he might have been able to stay ahead in the match. There were some key points where it might have looked like Milos was going for too much on some of his shots (such as in the third set tiebreak), but it was the right call regardless of whether or not he won the point. The difference will be making more of those shots in the future as Milos becomes a more experienced player.

Full credit to Hewitt who, as the wily veteran, was able to adjust his game to solve the problems that Milos was presenting him. It looked like Raonic would be too much handle early on, but Hewitt simply got better as the match progressed. It was definitely a winnable match from Milos' perspective, he unfortunately wasn't consistent enough at crucial stages of the match. It was a great match to watch, though, and a big thanks to TSN for giving the match the coverage it deserved!

So no repeat of last year's Round of 16 run for Milos. It would have been nice to see Raonic take on Djokovic, but it's not like anyone can beat him anyway.  I'd just like to know where I can get a radioactive yellow Lacoste shirt for the next time I hit the courts.

-multi

P.S. - watch TSN's Video On Demand (VOD) of the entire match at the following link (not sure how long they will leave it out, but it works now): http://watch.tsn.ca/Redirect/?ClipId=605041  --wacb