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Milos Raonic cruises over Tommy Haas, into the Wimbledon third round against Nick Kyrgios
WIMBLEDON – A young Milos Raonic remembers a young Tommy Haas, back in 2002 in Toronto.
“Young” is relative; Raonic was 11; Haas was 24, ranked No. 3 in the world and a semi-finalist at the Canadian tournament that year. Raonic couldn’t really remember who the major sponsor was back then, taking a guess that it was the du Maurier Cup (it was, in fact, the Rogers AT&T Cup).
But he probably remembers Haas most for having defeated his idol in a third-set tiebreak in the third round, about a month before American legend Pete Sampras said farewell to tennis at the U.S. Open.
Fast forward 13 years, and it is Raonic who is the top-10 player and Haas, 37 and on the umpteenth post-surgery comeback of his star-crossed career, is officially ranked No. 861.
That major numbers gap narrowed – a little – in the latter stages of the match, but Raonic’s 6-0, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4) victory was rarely in question and sets up a third-round clash with 20-year-old Nick Kyrgios of Australia on Friday.
The chasm between the two seemed true in the first two sets when Raonic allowed Haas absolutely zero say in the matter, and only two games. He broke Haas at love the first two times he served. The German has missed over a year after (yet another) shoulder surgery, and topping out around 113 mph on the first serve isn’t going to trouble a top player too much these days.
But in the third set, Haas picked it up.
“That’s the beauty of the best of five, is that you’re never really out of it until really the last point,” Haas said. “Would have been great to have taken it to a fifth, but he served really well.”
The third and fourth sets each took about the same amount of time as the first two sets combined; Raonic won the first 6-0 in just 18 minutes.
He thought Haas settled down a little bit after a slow start.
“I thought he was playing quite well. He was actually probably doing a better job than I was in that third set. I only really started figuring things out a little bit midway through that fourth set, getting sort of back on top,” Raonic said. “But all in all, it was like any three‑out‑of‑five‑set match is going to be. It's going to go back and forth a little bit. Especially against good players it is never one way.”
Raonic had some opportunities to finish it earlier than he did; he might take back a few second-serve returns on the forehand side that went into the bottom regions of the net. But there was no major concern. “I was serving pretty well. That's always going to make my job a little bit easier,” he said. “Then I just had to sort of find a way a little bit better from the baseline and find a way to return a little bit better.
The two had met once before, during another Haas comeback in 2013 in the final of the now-defunct San José tournament that Raonic won for the third straight time that season.
In that indoor venue, Raonic’s serve was even more of a rocket than it usually is. Wednesday on Court No. 1, he was no slouch as he regularly hit 140 mph; in fact, he posted the third-fastest serve in Wimbledon history at 145 mph.
So Haas has seen it before.
“That serve is special, that’s for sure. It’s been awhile since I faced a serve like that. I mean, the last time really was when I played him in (San Jose). I felt like even there I was playing actually some good tennis and didn’t have a chance,” Haas said. “He played extremely well in the beginning (Wednesday) and put me under pressure and made my mind think a lot of things right away and took a lot of confidence away.”
On the hottest day in Wimbledon history, Raonic went without a ballcap to help prevent the sun from beating down on his head, even though he had practiced with one over the weekend. He seemed to suffer no ill-effects, though, and he kept the match to 2 1/2 hours with a day off on Thursday.
Afterwards, the Canadian was distinctly uninterested in any sideline narratives in the match against Kyrgios – not how fast he served Wednesday, not the fact that Kyrgios was also wearing a sleeve (on his left arm).
In the end, when he hits the practice court on Thursday, he might do a little maintenance work on his forehand. All things being relative to their typical standard, Raonic hit his backhand – particularly the down-the-line version – better than his money-making forehand.
