Milos Raonic heeds advice from Wayne Gretzky to first-time Olympians

WIMBLEDON, England – A few months ago, Milos Raonic received some great advice. He was training in Los Angeles, and thanks to a friend of a friend, he went to dinner with Wayne Gretzky. Among the topics of conversation: the Olympics.

''Make sure you enjoy it,'' Gretzky told him.

The 21-year-old Canadian tennis star listened to the 51-year-old Canadian hockey legend.

The Olympics were only part of Gretzky’s career, and they provided disappointment as well as glory – no medal as a player in Nagano, gold as executive director in Salt Lake, no medal as executive director in Torino. But the Olympics are about more than winning and losing. They are about the experience.

That experience left an imprint on Gretzky, who helped bring the 2010 Winter Games to Vancouver and helped light the torch at the Opening Ceremony, and that left an imprint on Raonic.

"He’s won pretty much every single thing,'' Raonic said. ''The fact the Olympics means so much shows how grand the event is. …

"He just told me the competition’s a big thing for sure, but he said the most special thing was meeting other athletes and just learning from them and just sort of hearing different stories. Athletes, their stories don’t go just one or two years they’ve been successful. They go 12, 15 years before they come here.''

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Raonic insists he lacks no focus on the competition, and that’s good. He needs focus. He has a difficult draw. The 25th-ranked player in the world, he faces 69th-ranked Tatsuma Ito of Japan in the first round. But if he wins, he could face sixth-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.

He is renting a house near Wimbledon – quiet, close, convenient. Understandable. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is clear across town from the Olympic Park and the Athletes’ Village.

"I imagine if I were a tennis player, maybe I’d consider [that],” said Jason Myslicki, a Nordic combined skier in Torino and Vancouver, now an athlete service officer for Team Canada. "They tend to have pretty good cash in their pockets. Maybe I’d have a nice place right out by Wimbledon.''

But the house is only for the night before a match, or if things run really late. For the most part, Raonic has wanted to stay away from Wimbledon.

He just played at The Championships a month ago, making a disappointing second-round exit at the hands of American Sam Querrey. Except for some cosmetic differences – the Olympic rings, the pink and purple banners, the colorful uniforms instead of the white ones, which he joked give you the freedom to not be ''as diligent about how you’re eating to not get as dirty'' – Wimbledon is Wimbledon.

It’s a special place, hallowed ground, to be sure. But he’s been here before, and he’ll be here again.

"Here, it’s pretty much the tennis players,” Raonic said. "Here, it’s a tennis tournament.''

And so he’s living in the Village. There, it’s all the other athletes. There, it’s the Olympics. He has never been to the Olympics before, and who knows how many chances he will get to come back?

This is a guy who stays in five-star hotels and drives fancy cars. But for now, he’s in what he called ''no better than a college dorm room.'' It has a twin bed, a fan, a fridge, a common area. That’s about it.

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To get to practice Wednesday and Thursday, he took the bus. The ride is an hour, at least. His coach, Galo Blanco, said this is the only thing ''a little not good.' But Raonic didn’t complain. He said the ride was ''only an hour.''

''And you can nap,'' Raonic added with a smile. ''I’ve been napping in both directions quite well.''

Sounds like he needs the sleep.

Raonic hasn’t been relaxing privately at the Village after spending the day on tennis, as he might when on tour. "You don’t sit around on your computer in your room,'' he said. He has been going to the cafeteria for dinner, going to the athletes’ lounge afterward.

“He’s in the athletes’ lounge a lot,'' Myslicki said. ''I know he hangs out. I think he’s excited to perhaps be around other Olympians as part of the team.''

At tennis events, he is recognized often because he is among tennis people, and he’s an individual, playing for himself. But at the Olympics, he isn’t recognized as much because he is in a wider world, and he is playing for his country.

It's got to be a different feeling, a cool feeling, a feeling he couldn’t have in a high-end hotel, no matter the thread count of the sheets.

"Nobody cares how comfortable the bed is,'' Raonic said. "Obviously you want to be settled enough, but nobody cares about the luxuries in the apartments, anything. It’s more so about the people you’re around and going to dinner and seeing a lot of great athletes.''

He met the Argentina basketball team, a thrill for a basketball fan. (He sought out Canadian star Steve Nash after a recent NBA game in Miami. They talked Olympics, too, but only briefly.) He bonded with athletes from Montenegro, because he was born in Titograd, Yugoslavia, which is now Podgorica, Montenegro. He has felt like a kid, and it has brought out the Canadian in him.

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No, he isn’t a native of Canada. And yes, he now lives in Monte Carlo and trains in Spain. But he’s on the international tennis circuit because he moved to the Toronto area when he was three and started playing tennis in Richmond Hill when he was eight.

He grew up in Canada. He got his start in Canada. He said it is an honor to compete for Canada and wear the Maple Leaf, as Gretzky did, as so many other great ones did, and he hopes he can boost tennis in hockey country.

"Just knowing the difference it can make,'' he said, "it’s definitely a big thing.''

Raonic spoke Thursday after an hour-long practice in a red shirt with a little Canadian logo. He was hot, sweaty, tired, and he had an hour-plus bus ride back to the Village. He looked like he would be taking another nap, living the dream.

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