{"id":32,"date":"2011-02-13T14:09:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T18:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/?p=32"},"modified":"2011-02-18T15:50:55","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T19:50:55","slug":"verdasco-reaches-sap-open-final-against-raonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/2011\/02\/13\/verdasco-reaches-sap-open-final-against-raonic\/","title":{"rendered":"Verdasco reaches SAP Open final against Raonic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Excerpt from Tennischannel.com <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennischannel.com\/news\/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=8667\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Verdasco and Raonic have never  played but will become quite familiar with each other in the next few  days because of a scheduling quirk. After playing Sunday in San Jose,  the two will meet again on Wednesday in the first round in Memphis.<\/p>\n<p>``I prefer to win tomorrow and lose in Memphis so I will have one more title,'' Verdasco said.<\/p>\n<p>Raonic  has had a strong start to the season, going through qualifying and  winning three matches in the Australian Open and making it to his first  ATP World Tour final. He has shot up the rankings from 156th at the end  of last year to 84th heading into this week. He is expected to be 66th  if he loses on Sunday and 59th if he wins the title.<\/p>\n<p>``It's nice  getting that kind of attention,'' he said. ``But more importantly it's  nice doing well at the top level of tennis because that's what my goals  are.''<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old is looking to become the first Canadian to  win a title on the ATP World Tour since Greg Rusedski won in Seoul in  April 1995.<\/p>\n<p>He leads the tournament with 45 aces in just three  matches, winning a staggering 87.4 percent of first-serve points. He  tuned up for the final by playing Ivo Karlovic in an exhibition, losing a  pair of tiebreakers to the big-serving Croat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from Tennischannel.com article: Verdasco and Raonic have never played but will become quite familiar with each other in the next few days because of a scheduling quirk. After playing Sunday in San Jose, the two will meet again on Wednesday in the first round in Memphis. &#8220;I prefer to win tomorrow and lose in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}