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For the first time in his career, Milos Raonic comes back from a 0-2 sets deficit to win, and reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals

For the first time in his career, Milos Raonic comes back from a 0-2 sets deficit to win, and reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals

WIMBLEDON – Milos Raonic has now played 94 best-of-five set singles matches in his career, including Davis Cup.

But until Manic Monday at Wimbledon there was one thing he had never done – had never even come close to doing.

The 25-year-old Canadian had never erased a two sets to none deficit to pull out a victory. Against Belgian David Goffin on Monday afternoon, Raonic came all the way back to prevail 4-6, 3-6 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and advance to the quarter-finals.

It's the first time for me and probably the most significant situation for me to come back from two sets to love down. I definitely felt good about that,” Raonic said. “Hopefully a nice, pivotal match for me.”

It will be the fifth career Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance for Raonic, who now holds the Canadian record all by hiself as he moves one ahead of Eugenie Bouchard and Carling Bassett-Seguso on that list.

In the larger picture of Raonic’s five-set career, it was a monumental effort. It’s not just that he had never come back from being two sets to none down – he had never even made any of those matches a battle.

David Goffin got off to a great start, and then Milos Raonic decided to try to dictate the match's terms himself. (REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)
David Goffin got off to a great start, and then Milos Raonic decided to try to dictate the match's terms himself. (REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)

According to Tennis Abstract, Raonic has played nine best-of-five set matches in his career during which he lost the first two sets, all but the one against Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the 2013 Davis Cup at majors.

He lost every single one of those matches in three straight sets – he didn’t even push it to four even once, never mind go distance. Granted, we’re talking about premium opponents for the most part – Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic. But that streak of futility also included the straight-sets defeat at the hands of Albert Ramos-Viñolas at the French Open when, unlike a couple of the losses on the list, injury didn’t appear to be a factor.

Raonic has come back only three times from being two sets to one down to win in five sets, twice in Davis Cup, and once at the 2014 French Open against Gilles Simon when he prevailed 7-5 in the third.

As good a player as he is, you had to figure that some day that streak of futility would be broken. But early on against Goffin, this didn’t appear to be that day.

The Belgian, locked in yet another David v. Goliath matchup (most of them are, for him), seemed to be reading Raonic’s serve effortlessly. He seemed to have all sorts of time to set up what he wanted to do to get the ball past Raonic at the net. It just seemed … easy.

Raonic had won his first three matches this Wimbledon in straight sets. And he had not allowed his powerful serve to be broken a single time in those three matches.

Goffin broke it once in the first, and twice in the second; Raonic handed that set to him on a double-fault.

But then, the Canadian got down to business, cleaned things up, and changed course. Raonic said a gift break from Goffin early in the third set, gave him a look. “That sort of just told me, ‘Okay, I can get him out of his element,’ which he definitely was in in the beginning. That was sort of a sign that, you know, there's something to work with here, I’ve just got to exploit it,” he said.

“I just had to change something, had to change the way the match was happening, all the things that were happening on the court. It was too much on his terms. I was allowing him to play too much, get too much rhythm,” Raonic added. “The points were too long. He was feeling good; he was doing a lot of good things at the beginning. I wanted to take that away from him.”

A 20-minute rain delay early in the third set, which didn’t seem consequential at the time, might have ended up being more meaningful than it first appeared because it allowed for a tête-à-tête with coaching consultant John McEnroe.

John McEnroe did make an appearance at Raonic's match between television duties. As it turns out, he may have been there at the right time – on hand to give Raonic some advice during a short rain delay. (REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)
John McEnroe did make an appearance at Raonic's match between television duties. As it turns out, he may have been there at the right time – on hand to give Raonic some advice during a short rain delay. (REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)

McEnroe first appeared after he finished calling the Roger Federer match, arriving at faraway No. 2 Court wearing a suit and tie and his ever-present New York Mets cap. He was there when the rain delay occurred, and had a chance to talk to Raonic in one of the small rooms under Court No. 2; the players never got all the way back to the locker room.

By the time Raonic looked up at his supporters’ box again, McEnroe and his Mets cap were gone. “You know, I'm out there playing by myself. Nobody can win those points for me except for myself. That's what I was trying to do,” Raonic said.

McEnroe, who won his first Wimbledon singles title 35 years ago Monday, had to leave to call the Andy Murray match so he didn’t get to see the rest of the comeback in person. Raonic said that he believed McEnroe had an extra monitor in the BBC booth, and so no doubt was keeping tabs on him. “I’m sure he asked them to turn it to my match. I know he did. We spoke about it previously,” Raonic said. 

In the end, Raonic got clinical in his management of this match. He understood that he was playing what he calls “better-looking tennis” at the beginning of the match, getting into rallies and stroking the ball. That’s not the kind of tennis Raonic has turned into a moneymaker, and whether it was his own constantly-evolving understanding of his own game, or a word from McEnroe or his other coach, Carlos Moyá, he was able to change gears.

I think I allowed him to play too much on his terms. I was getting a lot of balls in and playing the points and playing maybe betterlooking tennis at the beginning. I sort of gave up on that and said, 'I’ve got to play this on my terms.' Maybe I committed a few more unforced errors, but was hitting through the court more, not allowing him to play the way he wanted to,” Raonic said. 

The ability to change a match like that around could be a game-changer for Raonic, another level up in his development as a tennis player.

He began mixing up his serve more. In the original plan, he thought he could get around Goffin, who is not a tall player and doesn’t have a particularly long reach, with his serve. But Goffin was guessing right, or anticipating correctly, or simply using his world-class footwork to catch up with it.

“I think that's maybe one thing I did not do enough in the beginning. I wasn't expecting necessarily that many serves to come back. Then I sort of tried to power through him,” Raonic said. “After, I tried to hit some slower, faster serves. Even if he got his racquet on the ball, it wasn't the same timing he was playing with.”

Raonic said as he’s become more experienced, and with the work he’s done on the mental side of the game, he was able to stay in the moment better. He closed the door on what had already happened, and resisted the temptation to look too far ahead of where he was.

“Maybe I would have had the mental strength (to come back and win in five), but I don't know if I would have had the exact same perspective on what I needed to do in those right moments,” Raonic said when asked if he’d have been able to pull this off a year ago. “ I think that's probably the general understanding of myself and my game that I have significantly improved on. That helped.”