Canada’s Milos Raonic expressive in Rogers Cup victory

Wednesday evening, on a court only some eight kilometres from where he grew up, the 25-year-old brought the new and immensely improved, diversified Milos Raonic home.

Thestar.com
July 27, 2016
By DiManno

It’s what matters least in his game, except for the novelty: The many faces of Milos Raonic.

Grin - for the fun of it, and there’s been so much delight in recent months.

Open-mouthed holler - for celebratory moments, accompanied by fist-pumps.

Smirk - self-directed, akin to the eye-roll or head-smack, taking the mickey out of himself for an all-out gaffe, unforced error in the lingo, like over-cranking a huge smash with miles of open court beckoning and crushing it wonky-wide. Got a bit too salivating and hurry-up on that one, last night.

And the tongue, of course, increasingly a feature of his facial repertoire - flicking, pressed between impossibly white teeth, straining along with the torque of his monster serve.

Hair still doesn’t move, though. Even the cowlick stays obediently gelled in place.

Raonic, expressive as we’d rarely seen him until this year, a man of multiple emotional dimensions, suddenly released from behind what used to be a stoic, stony, facade; the flat affect, misleadingly suggesting there was nobody home inside the robotic exterior, with its one-note acing thrum.

Milos circa 2016 isn’t that person anymore.

Raonic, circa the Rogers Cup, isn’t that player anymore.

Wednesday evening, on a court only some eight kilometres from where he grew up - 10-minute drive, if not for the endless construction around York University - the 25-year-old brought the new and immensely improved, diversified Milos Raonic home, to the Canadian tournament that nourished his childhood fantasies.

Route 66 to the Round of 16: That’s 66 minutes for his opening match at the Aviva Centre and into the third round.

A wind-burn quick straight-set demolition of Yen-Hsun Lu from Chinese Taipei, 6-3, 6-3.

Sandwiched between two bounced compatriots: Journeyman Vasek Pospisil, dismissed 7-6, 6-0 by France’s Gael Monfils; rising teenage idol Denis Shapovalov set aside un-gently, 6-4, 6-3, by Bulgarian Grigor Dmitrov.

Other than its too-rapid execution - from a spectator’s perspective - there was little to fault (other than a second-set double fault) in Raonic’s commanding, highly animated performance, which he clearly enjoyed as much as the crowd, despite an early fit of the willies, he claimed afterwards.

“I think just general first round, you don’t know how things are going to start out, those kind of nerves. Obviously I would like to do well here.’’ Hasn’t ever been victorious here. “So I probably put some pressure extra on myself. But I think I got that behind me very quickly and I played a solid match from start to finish.’’

Possibly the most solid match of the year, if far from absorbing, nothing the likes of his dramatic semifinal triumph over Roger Federer at the All England Club.

Here’s solid: 80 per cent of first serve points won, 71 per cent off a second serve that was sometimes harder and faster, topping out at 239 km/h; nine aces; dropped just 11 points in his nine service games; converted three breaks, faced one (1) service break of his own in the fifth game of the second set but barraged Lu with bazookas into the body to fight back twice from deuce (double fault caused the first), Lu missing on what should have been a backhand winner down the line, and hold.

Not much of a challenge was provided by Lu, world No. 71 but a one-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist. Next on tap - immediately, Thursday night - American Jared Donaldson, a surviving qualifier. Still on course, however, for a semi-final showdown with Novak Djokovic, merely the greatest tennis player on the planet, his recent Wimbledon flop notwithstanding.

It was the first tennis that Raonic, product of Thornhill, seeded fourth, world-ranked seventh, had played since July 10, the date upon which he became Canada’s first and only single male Grand Slam finalist. And, regrettably, Canada’s first single male competitor to lose a Grand Slam final - to Andy Murray, at Wimbledon.

No Murray to exact revenge from here. But Murray, the Scotsman who carried the weight of Great Britain on his shoulders at SW19, would understand some of what Raonic is feeling in his hometown ATP stop, although the Rogers Cup is certainly no Grand Slam glittery event.

At six-foot-five, Raonic is big enough in person. He’s super-sized in the promotional posters and visuals bunting hung all around the tennis complex. With so many top players dropping out of Toronto, falling as it does between Wimbledon and the Olympics, he’s the primary attraction, even with Djokovic in town.

Yet he looked calm, comfortable, at peace with his heightened fame. Mom and dad in the audience, staying “close to home” while in Toronto, so thus able to avoid some of the adoring harassment he might otherwise encounter in his short swing through Canada.

“I practiced well last week. I struggled in a few practices as we got closer to the tournament.’’ Tuesday morning he talked it through with coach Carlos Moya. “The first thing that came out from Carlos, which was a very different perspective, was you haven’t played here often. My perspective until now was, I don’t get to play here often ... I need to get the best out of myself.

“He sort of put me in the thought process of, ‘You don’t get to do this often. Make sure you enjoy it.’ I think once I used that nervous energy in the right outlet, it made it much better for me.’’

And crucially, he’s loosened up, took the twisted out of his sphincter.

“It’s a personal maturity as well,” Raonic explained. “Before, I was under the constant believe that for me to get the best tennis out of myself, I just had to be there stone-faced and just really go about the process and try to be as efficient as possible. Go in, get it done and leave.”

Now, his philosophy has shifted sharply.

“Sometimes, you let yourself get in that situation too much, where you bottle up a lot of energy. So start expressing more, be positive with it, show more intensity.

“In tough moments, fight fire with fire sometimes a bit more.’’

From chillingly cool to mucho hot.