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

Washington: Citi Open 500

Thu, 1 Aug (afternoon): Raonic loses in straight sets to Matosevic. Double faulted on first break point faced in the 1st set, which was also set point. After serving for the 2nd set at 6-3 in the tiebreak, he just fell apart and lost the set.

Wow... How can he explain this. It's all mental. Anxious when closing out sets. Skill is there, just doesn't get into it, doesn't look like he's having fun, hesitant on points, gets shaky on the racquet on big points.

Coach issues, any have any ideas here?

Thu, 1 Aug (morning): Order of Play puts Milos on Stadium Court not before 4:00 pm (EDT).  Raonic has beaten Matosevic on hard courts before, at the Shanghai Masters 1000 round of 64 in 2012, 7-6(4), 6-3.  Two years earlier (2010) Matosevic (AUS) defeated Raonic (CAN) in 3 sets in the Challenger Banque Nationale in Rimouski, Quebec, Canada.

Full head to head comparison here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Players/Head-To-Head.aspx?pId=ME05&oId=R975#

According to Sportsnet's Website, they will have "Citi Open Rounds" on Sportsnet ONE starting at 4pm (Eastern) until 10pm.  This should include Milos Raonic's match on Stadium Court.  Directly before their coverage of the match, they will be showing "Tennisography Milos Raonic: 1" at 3:30 pm on Sportsnet ONE.

The stream should also be widely available on the internet.  The official ATP streamer will be showing it and Tennis Channel (in the US only?) will be showing it according to the Citi Open official website.

Wed, 31 Jul: Still no order of play for tomorrow as they just released the remainder of today's schedule after rain delay includes moving Nishikori from Ctr Crt to Court 1, starting it all up again at 10:30. If all the matches are played we'll have a full day of 3rd round play tomorrow (round of 16). [OoP now out: Milos vs Matosevic approx 4pm ET, if not rain-delayed: after Haas vs Smyczek.]

Also, there are issues with Twitter/Wordpress support that I'm just becoming aware of. Hopefully re-twittering the site soon...

Tuesday, July 30th: Milos Raonic defeats Samuel Groth 7-5, 6-4. Milos converted one break point per set (of three chances in the 1st and six chances in the 2nd) to reach the third round of the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. today. The match wasn't televised anywhere so we can just go by the numbers...

One interesting stat is that he was out-aced. Groth hit 10 aces while Milos hit 9. It's unusual for Milos to not win in the ace category. Milos did only hit one double fault to Groth's five, and given that his 1st and 2nd serve points won stats were much higher and he didn't face a break point all match, I think the match probably went more in Milos' favour than the scoreline suggests. While Milos won an expectedly high percentage of 1st serve points (91%), his first serve stat was only 1% higher than Groth's (62% to Groth's 61%). Obviously a bigger spread there would be great.

Looks like TV coverage starts Thursday, so Milos' 3rd round match should be televised then (tomorrow has the likes of Fish, del Potro, Nishikori, and Isner all scheduled for their 2nd round matches).

July 29:  Milos will play qualifier Samuel Groth tomorrow approx. 8pm ET (after the Dimitrov match). Groth, ATP#228, upset Denis Kudla today 7-6(2) 6-2.

July 26:  The draw is out:

>> http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2013/418/mds.pdf  << As fourth seed Milos has a bye in the first round.  In the second round he'll meet either Denis Kudla (ATP#93) or a qualifier; third round (R16) his most likely opponent is 15th seed Nikolay Davydenko (#43). Fourth round (QF) most-likely opponent is Gilles Simon (#16). If Milos makes it to SF he would likely meet Nishikori, and Del Potro will likely be waiting for whoever makes it to the Finals.  Milos' draw could have been better -- especially at QF -- but it could have been worse, too. July 20: Qualifiers for the Citi Open 500 in Washington DC are next weekend, July 27 and 28; first round of the main draw starts Monday, July 29.  As of now it appears that Milos, at his career-high ATP ranking of 13, will go in seeded fourth, behind late-entry Juan Martin del Potro, Kei Nishikori and Tommy Haas; Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was originally supposed to play, but is still out with a knee injury. ATP:  http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2013/07/29/Washington-Del-Potro-To-Return.aspx   << In four weeks Milos has 180 points to defend, then another 180 a week later; but before that he's got three weeks with no points to defend: an opportunity, starting in Washington, to pick up those 360 points by playing "par" tennis; or as Milos says, "Just beat the guys you're supposed to beat."