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A fairly routine four-set win for Milos Raonic in his first match at Wimbledon Monday
WIMBLEDON – It was Milos Raonic’s first best-of-five set match since Davis Cup in March. And it was his first Grand Slam match since the Australian Open in January.
So all things considered, and given how little match play he’s had since the foot issue he had taken care of in mid-May first surfaced in Monte Carlo in mid-April, the “B” grade the 24-year-old Canadian gave himself after his 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (4) victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain in the first round Monday wasn’t too bad.
“Yeah, it takes a little bit extra (to adjust to best-of-five), and it's just something you ask of yourself, really. I don't think you need to sort of play matches to get in that mode, but you just have to be disciplined with yourself mentally about it. That's it,” said Raonic, who will meet 37-year-old Tommy Haas of Germany in the second round on Wednesday.
Raonic had 25 aces and served at a 68 per cent clip, winning 82 per cent of those points. “I don't really think I actually served that well. I just lacked a little bit of intensity and discipline in the right parts of my game,” he said. “I think it sort of showed, because I would have to dig out of a few problems a few times at love‑30, a break point, maybe situations that I wouldn't normally let myself get into.”
He was perhaps a little harsh in the self-assessment; Raonic faced just three break points, while he earned nine on Gimeno-Traver’s serve, which is not a hard delivery but was a fairly effective one Monday with 13 aces.
The key to not letting things potentially get out of hand – i.e. go to a fifth set – was Raonic’s solid returning in that fourth-set tiebreak. Until Gimeno-Traver saved a match point at 6-3 I the tiebreak with basically an unreturnable serve, Raonic did a good job not going for too much, but putting good returns into play, allowing him to dictate the points or for Gimeno-Traver to make an error.
Raonic came to net 42 times although his success rate was just above 50 per cent, something he can improve going forward.
He’ll face a different type of opponent in the veteran Haas, who serve-volleyed a lot more in his own first-round win over Dusan Lajovic of Serbia Monday than Gimeno-Traver did against him.
Raonic played on Court 3, which was the scene of his disastrous slip back in 2011 in his first-round match against Gilles Muller.
The Canadian was forced to retire from the match, ended up having hip surgery and missing the summer season.
At this stage of the tournament, with the show courts barely having any play on them, the grass is luscious and perfect and, generally speaking, the footing is generally expected to be treacherous until the baseline gets some wear and tear.
But Raonic said that even though his opponent slipped and fell a few times, he himself didn’t think the footing was bad at all.
“Probably because it hasn't been that wet here, even just – the court feels pretty gritty. It doesn't feel like you're ever really slipping around other than from what you saw from (Gimeno-Traver),” Raonic said. “Compared to normally how I feel when I really get on the first days of the courts here, the main match courts, it's definitely a bit more gritty than normal. There has never been a single issue with footing (this year)."
The Canadian didn’t attribute the loss of the third set to anything specific, saying that there were a few “undisciplined” moments throughout the match, not just in the set he lost. “I've just got to clean up that discipline part of it. That's just something that comes down to myself, and it's not really a very demanding thing,” he said. “I'm happy to have gotten through, and that's the most important thing today.”
