The qualifying rounds have finished and the main draws<\/a> are underway. \u00a0Qualifiers on the men's singles<\/strong> side included Alex Bogomolov Jr., Ryan Sweeting, Robert Kendrick, and Donald Young from the USA and Marsel Ilhan from Turkey, who Milos defeated in the round of 128 at Indian Wells (it is unlikely we will see a rematch, as Marsel would have to make it to the semi-finals from his quarter of the draw, which includes Murray, Verdasco, and Djokovic).<\/p>\n Qualifiers on the women's singles<\/strong> side include Jamie Hampton and Sloane Stephens from the USA to join other Americans like Melanie Oudin and Madison Keys in the main draw.<\/p>\n Of note on the doubles<\/strong> side, wildcards have been issued to the American team of Ryan Harrison and Jack Sock, who will face the Bryan Brothers (USA) in the first round, and to the USA\/JPN team of Donald Young and Kei Nishikori.<\/p>\n Also of note, Milos Raonic was not given a wildcard in this tournament - his ranking (currently #34) gave him automatic entry.<\/p>\n As previously posted, Rebecca Marino and Stephanie Dubois were Canada's hopefuls for the qualifying draw but they were eliminated. \u00a0Frank Dancevic made it through the first round but fell to Alex Bogomolov Jr. in the second qualifying round 4-6, 6-1, 3-6. \u00a0That leaves Milos Raonic as the only singles player remaining in the tournament, and Daniel Nestor the only doubles player.<\/p>\n Daniel Nestor's<\/strong> draw as 2nd seed in men's doubles will not be easy to start. \u00a0He and Max Mirnyi (BLR) will take on Spain's Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez in the first round, followed by the winner of the match between Djokovic\/Murray and Stakhovsky\/Youzhny. \u00a0As the second seed, they could potentially be facing the Bryans in the finals if both were to make it through their halfs of the draw.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to see how I think<\/a><\/strong> the men's draw<\/a> will turn out. \u00a0As you can see, I expect Milos having to defeat Devvarman (IND), Ferrer (ESP), Wawrinka (SUI), Soderling (SWE), Djokovic (SRB), and Federer (SUI) on his way to the title! \u00a0It would be quite the feat indeed.<\/p>\n Milos Raonic will play his first match Friday, tomorrow, 25 March. \u00a0He will be playing against Somdev Devvarman, who is coming off a win against Potito Starace (ITA) 6-2, 6-4 and made a very impressive performance earlier this month in Indian Wells, California in his round of 16 match against Federer at the BNP Paribas Open.<\/p>\n Good luck Milos!<\/p>\n --wacb<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Qualifiers and Wildcards The qualifying rounds have finished and the main draws are underway. \u00a0Qualifiers on the men’s singles side included Alex Bogomolov Jr., Ryan Sweeting, Robert Kendrick, and Donald Young from the USA and Marsel Ilhan from Turkey, who Milos defeated in the round of 128 at Indian Wells (it is unlikely we will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Canadians<\/h2>\n
Milos Raonic<\/h2>\n