With the U.S. Open days away, Milos Raonic has already won a championship

It isn't the prize he really wants, but Canadian Milos Raonic already is a champion this summer – without winning a single tournament.

The Canadian won what's called the "Emirates Airline US Open Series men’s title", after he had the best record in the tournaments played in the U.S. and Canada leading up to the U.S. Open.

Raonic came in through the back door after the one player who could still surpass his point total, American John Isner, defaulted from his quarter-final match at the Winston-Salem Open with an injured ankle.

Raonic reached the semi-finals at the tournament in Cincinnati last week and the quarter-finals at the Rogers Cup in Toronto. But what did it for him was playing in the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. to open the series.

The Citi Open isn't as big an event as Cincinnati or Toronto (it awards half the ranking points). But Raonic won it.

There was a new provision this year to try to encourage players to enter more events. Most of the top players skip the smaller ones, settling for the back-to-back Masters 1000 series tournaments in Cincinnati and Toronto. That third tournament doubled Raonic's total, and made him the champion.

As a comparison, Federer finished in third place behind Raonic and Isner even though he reached the final in Toronto, and won Cincinnati.

The series website provided a quote from Raonic.

(Don't you love how these press-release quotes always have the players getting the name of whatever it is – including any and all sponsors – exactly right? It's uncanny!)

Serena Williams won the 2014 Series women’s title after her efforts in Stanford, Montreal and Cincinnati.

This title is rather an illusory one; the "U.S. Open Series Challenge" is basically a manufactured marketing concept to tie all the summer tournaments together into some sort of cohesive unit for sponsorship purposes.

But there is one HUGE benefit to it for the players: money. The top three finishers in the Challenge earn the right to serious bonus money at the U.S. Open.

That left column? That belong$ to Raonic.