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

Raonic Advances to SAP Open Final

Milos Raonic will have the chance to repeat as the SAP Open champion tomorrow after defeating the up and coming Ryan Harrison (USA) in straight sets, 7-6(4) 6-2. Andy Murray (GBR) was the last player to win the SAP Open in back-to-back years in 2006-2007.

The #SAPOpen final featuring @milosraonic will air LIVE on @Sportsnet ONE at 6pm ET (3pm PT) tomorrow. See you then, #TeamRaonic!

—Tennis Canada (@Tennis_Canada) February 18, 2012

Given that their only previous meeting on the ATP tour ended with Harrison winning in three sets, we expected this to be a highly competitive match. Raonic and Harrison were rivals in the juniors so they know each other quite well by now. The first set was a close affair, with Harrison saving the only break point of the set. The American was serving well, hitting six aces without giving up a double fault. But Raonic was able to pull away in the tiebreak, giving him a perfect 7-0 record in breakers in San Jose. Milos hit a whopping 13 aces in the first set alone.

After taking the opening set, Raonic was able to loosen up and take more chances on the return. It paid off when he got the first break of the match early in the second set. At this point, it didn't appear as though Harrison could come up with the game to challenge Raonic on his serve. The will of Harrison had been broken and Milos was on cruise control. Roanic broke once again to win the match and put Harrison away convincingly.

Milos racked up 20 aces for the match, and he hasn't dropped a set on the way to reaching the finals. He joked after the match that he might have to become a Sharks fan after all the success he's been having in San Jose. On a more serious note, the Canadian admitted that his return of serve is the main aspect of his game that he is looking to improve. There's no doubt that he's already gotten better in that department, but there's always room for improvement. Here's what Raonic had to say after the match:

“I think I did a really good job taking care of the serve,” said the 21 year old. “What I was doing really well was making most of my first serves. But when I missed a few, I was still playing pretty well on the second serves. In the offseason, I didn’t spend too many days working on the serve. It was moreso the return of serve game. And I worked on every aspect, from the baseline to the net. I know when I have time, I try to focus a bit more on the return game and keep improving there." [source: ATP]

With Roddick out of the tournament, Raonic has a great chance to win the championship regardless of who he meets in the final. He will either face Julien Benneteau (FRA) or Denis Istomin (UZB) tomorrow, and their semi-final match will be decided later this evening. Milos has become the first male player in 2012 to reach multiple finals, winning earlier this year in Chennai. His overall record this year is 10-1 with the only loss coming against Lleyton Hewitt at the Australian Open.

Here's a picture of the fastest serve Milos hit during the match today:

.@MilosRaonic's serve read 150 mph during match against @RyanHarrison92 #SAPOpen today! twitter.com/SAPSponsors/st…

— SAP Sponsorships (@SAPSponsors) February 18, 2012

Good luck in the finals, Milos! We hope you get another taste of sweet maple syrupy victory.

-multi