The adductor issue and a wrist problem in Rome behind him, Milos Raonic aims for a run at the French Open

PARIS – Much has been made of the new-look game Canadian Milos Raonic debuted at the Australian Open last January.

The forward-focused game plan and the improvements in just about every facet of his game  had people talking as the 25-year-old reached the semi-finals there after winning the tuneup event in Brisbane over Roger Federer.

In his very next tournament in March, he made the final at Indian Wells, a Masters 1000 event.

Break it down a little further, and it’s worth noting that of his six losses so far this season, two came at the hands of No. 1 Novak Djokovic and two more at the hands of No. 2 Andy Murray.

The other two were to rising Aussie Nick Kyrgios, a talented, dangerous player who has had a good, consistent 2016.

Go deeper, and you can attribute three of the six losses to mitigating factors.

The first was in that Australian Open semi-final against Murray when, leading two sets to one, an adductor issue that had bothered Raonic since Brisbane flared up again. It was evident in his movement on the court that he was hampered – a reality the fans on Rod Laver Arena noticed, and paid tribute to in their loud support of the Canadian in a gut-wrenching defeat.

After six weeks away to heal the adductor and four consecutive victories over top-20 players in his first tournament back in the California desert, the adductor again hampered Raonic in a quick and painful 6-2, 6-0 defeat in that Indian Wells final.

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In Rome last week, where he lost 7-6, 6-3 to Kyrgios in the second round, it was a new issue – the left wrist.

Raonic told Eh Game he felt it the day after his first-round match, a three-set win over Italian wild card Marco Cecchinato that got a lot more complicated than it needed to be. In retrospect, it’s easier to understand why.

To sum up, when Raonic has played healthy, his tennis has been as good this season as all but a handful of players.

And after seven weeks and three tournaments on the clay, he feels as though he’s found his cruising speed and finally is back playing close to the level he showed in Australia to start the season.

Raonic played practice matches the last two days against very, very good opponents: No. 7 seed Tomas Berdych on Thursday and accomplished clay-courter Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay Friday.

The Canadian was pushing it – hard – on Friday. Numerous times during the 90-minute late-afternoon training session he was huffing and puffing, bent over trying to recover from some gruelling points.

And with the great acoustics inside legendary Court No. 1 at Roland Garros only adding to the symphony, the sound of the ball coming off the racquet on his serve and forehand was deafening.

And the intensity was deafening, too. At one point, Raonic was so aggravated with himself that he banged his shoe, hard, with his racquet. To the point where he actually took a look at the racquet afterwards to make sure he didn't put a dent in it.

He should probably check with Novak Djokovic about doing that sort of thing; Djokovic paid a bit of a price in Rome.

Raonic said he put in some good training before he even arrived in Paris.

In other words, he’s ready.

He will get a Sunday start against first-round opponent Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, a player who has been off the Tour for most of the last three years healing a stubborn foot problem.

Tipsarevic, a former top-10 player, is a shadow of what he once was. But he’s still a competitor and although Raonic is 4-0 against him (the last match going back more than 2 1/2 years), all of their meetings were close.

Of the eight sets they played in their first three encounters – all on hard courts – six went to tiebreaks.

The two met in an epic during Canada’s Davis Cup World Group semi-final against Serbia in Belgrade in the fall of 2013, with Raonic pulling out a 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 victory on the indoor clay.

That’s not the Tipsarevic Raonic will face Sunday. But given their history, he can’t afford to look past him.