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

Raonic Withdraws from Sony Ericsson Open

Milos Raonic turned his ankle in practice before his doubles match yesterday. He tried to play on it, but was forced to retire early in the match. This is bad news, obviously. We hoped he would be able to play today, but unfortunately that isn't the case. Andy Murray will advance in a walkover.

.@milosraonic has withdrawn from the #SEOpen with a right ankle sprain. Andy Murray advances to the fourth round. #Tennis #ATP

— Sony Ericsson Open (@SEOpen) March 25, 2012

If it is any consolation, Raonic did improve on last year's result by reaching the third round. Milos was upset by Devvarman in the second round in 2011. We were all looking forward to the match with Murray, but now we'll have to wait and see how serious the injury is and how long it will keep him off court.

-multi

Update 1:44 PM Eastern:
From Milos, via twitter a few seconds ago...

Unfortunately I couldn't play today with my hurt ankle, time to rest up and get ready for clay. Thanks for the kind words to my supporters.

— Milos Raonic (@milosraonic) March 25, 2012

--wacb

Excerpts of Milos' comments from the Canadian Press:

"I was just moving back and I rolled over my ankle and ended up spraining it,"

"I don't know too much about it right now, but in the doubles it wasn't getting better," said Raonic. "This morning it was a bit painful on pretty much every movement. Against the calibre of player I'd be up against, to play at 40 per cent didn't really didn't make much sense.

"The doctor in Spain doesn't think it's anything big. It probably just needs a couple days of rest, but active rest. With treatment and so on, it should be okay within a week or so."

"It's frustrating, but you must look at the big picture," said the Canadian with two ATP titles this season. "Everything is going well, obviously it would be more frustrating if things were going poorly.

"Even though if I might have some worries about something, I'm pretty good at coming back pretty quickly."

--source: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/tennis/story/2012/03/25/sp-milos-raonic-ankle-injury-sony-ericsson.html

All this means that we should expect to see Milos in Monte Carlo starting April 14th, the next tournament on the schedule. The draw in Monte Carlo is 64 instead of 128. Since there's no round of 128, only the top 8 seeds get byes and only 16 players get seeded in the draw. Like last year, Milos will not be seeded. The top 8 seeds will include Janko Tipsarevic and John Isner in place of Roger Federer and Mardy Fish, who are skipping the Rolex Masters. Milos made it to the 3rd round last year (Round of 16), ending up going down in straight sets to David Ferrer.

Click here for Monte Carlo Players List

--wacb