Advertisement

Milos Raonic meets Alexander Zverev in second round, could meet Novak Djokovic in Rogers Cup semis

Milos Raonic meets Alexander Zverev in second round, could meet Novak Djokovic in Rogers Cup semis

TORONTO — The Rogers Cup draw has been decided, and if Milos Raonic wants to win the tournament, he’ll have to go through world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals to get there.

While a dream final for the tournament, which has been depleted of stars over the last week, would have been a Djokovic-Raonic blockbuster, the draw did shake out to include some potential enticing match-ups for Canadians.

But what the draw didn’t include was the second- through fourth-ranked players in the world. With the proximity to August’s Rio Olympic Games, the Toronto field has dwindled with some of the biggest men’s tennis stars, such as Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal withdrawing from the event earlier this week. Nadal cited recovery from a left wrist injury, while both Murray and Federer listed similar reasons for needing rest after hectic schedules (all three are scheduled to play in Rio).

Other missing players include Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, David Ferrer, Roberto Bautista Agut and Pablo Cuevas. With those absences, the field is without three of the top four players and includes only six of the top 10.

More than other recent Olympic years, this edition of the Rogers Cup has suffered mightily with players dropping out. The last direct entry into the main draw was the 89th ranked Dmitry Tursunov. The cause is likely the proximity to the start of the Olympic tournament, which kicks off Aug. 6. This is also the first time in recent history the Canadian event falls right before the Games.

There is a feeling of slight disappointment surrounding this year’s tournament, given the withdrawals – and no one is likely as disappointed as tournament director Karl Hale. While he says he understands that injuries are a part of sport, he called the many withdrawals "unacceptable."

“We’re going to look after the event and look at things that we can do to rectify this and make sure this doesn’t happen going forward,” Hale said following the official draw ceremony held Friday evening at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. “We’ve already talked to the tour. We’ve talked to the players and the ATP to show them that we’re not happy about this and we’re looking forward and we think it will be fine in 2020.

“We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again because we can’t have this happen every four years,” Hale added.

The ATP event is held ever other year in Toronto, and is one of nine Masters-1000 events that are generally considered the top tournaments outside the four majors. Back in 2012, the Rogers Cup directly followed the Olympics and featured a reduced draw of 48, allowing the top 16 seeds to receive a bye into the second round. Still players like Federer and Nadal withdrew, while Murray, coming off his gold medal in London, retired before the third round with an injury.

In 2008, the Rogers Cup preceded the Games such as this edition, but there was two-week gap between the two, unlike this year’s one-week break. That year, by contrast, featured nine of the top 10 players at the time.

But despite all the withdraws, there are in fact tennis players participating in next week’s event held at the Aviva Centre at York University, including world No. 5 Stan Wawrinka, who was on hand for Friday’s draw ceremony. Before that, the two-time Grand Slam champion took to the baseball field in a personalized Toronto Blue Jays jersey and swung the bat a few times before chatting briefly with second baseman Devon Travis during the team’s batting practice.

 

Wawrinka, as the second seed in the event, was placed in the bottom half of the draw and could meet Japan’s Kei Nishikori, ranked sixth in the world, in the semifinals. As mentioned, on the top half is Djokovic and Raonic, the fourth seed, who would meet in the other semifinal, should they each advance that far.

Wawrinka, who is scheduled to play in the Rio Olympic Games, said playing the Rogers Cup was a priority for him.

“It’s a big event, important event for me. I’m not taking here as a preparation for me. It’s important to try to play well for my personal ranking and year,” he said.

As one of the top eight seeds, Raonic will receive a first-round bye. The Wimbledon finalist will most likely face 19-year-old Alexander Zverev in the second round. Fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil, who threw out the first pitch in Friday’s Blue Jays game, will face France’s Jeremy Chardy in the first round.

Canada’s Frank Dancevic will meet American — and recent Djokovic slayer — Sam Querrey in the first round, while Toronto-born Steven Diez will play Kyle Edmund, of Great Britain, in his opening match. Peter Polansky will play a qualifier in his first match.

However, the most intriguing opening-round tilt involving a Canadian goes to Denis Shapovalov, the 17-year-old junior Wimbledon champion, who will face off against the feisty Australian Nick Kyrgios. After receiving a wild card, the Rogers Cup will be just the second time Shapovalov has played in an ATP Tour main draw, after making this debut this week in Washington, where he lost in the first round.

The Kyrgios-Shapovalov match-up is among the ones Hale is particularly looking forward to along with seeing many other young stars in attendance.

“We still have a great player field. We have the number one player in the world, arguably playing to be the greatest player ever, Novak Djokovic so he’ll be coming in tomorrow. We have Milos, the greatest Canadian player ever, which he could win the tournament as well, along with Stan, a two-time Grand Slam champion. Some great young players like Kyrgios, Thiem, our own Denis Shapovalov who plays Kyrgios, which is really exciting for us, so we still have a great field and we’re really happy about it, but would like it to be better in the future”