What a good day for the Canadian tennis. After waiting 44 years for a Canadian to be back in a semifinal in the competition, the local fans have been blessed by 2 Canadians to fight for a place in the final.
Raonic
Despite a huge controversy after his match against Del Potro, Milos Raonic is having an excellent tournament. The world no.13 has defeated very tough opponents such as Chardy, Youzhny, Del Potro and now an in-form Gulbis to be the clear favourite to get to the final.
The match against Gulbis was a very close encounter with Milos winning only 3 points more than the Latvian. Milos won the first set after saving 2 set points when he was 5-6 down to then win the breaker. In the second set Mad Max Gulbis had a wonderful start to grab an early 2-0 lead and go straight to the decider.
In the third set the Latvian had a false start to concede a 3-1 lead to a very good Raonic. Game over? Not really! Gulbis broke back to level the set at 3-3. Raonic regrouped to win the decider 6-4. Match Stats.
After the match Milos commented “It’s great, what it all means. What it represents for tennis in Canada. It’s great what it shows to little kids: that you can succeed as a Canadian in tennis.”
Pospisil
Milos will play a surprising, a very surprising Pospisil. The 23 years old Canadian is now world no. 71 and he hasn’t had yet a bright career like Milos (see his graph), but he is getting there.
Vasek has beaten an in-form Isner in his opener to then defeat Stepanek in straight sets and world no.6 Tomas Berdych in a wonderful 3 setter. The Canadian was lucky in the quarters as he benefited from a retiring Davydenko that had to quit when he was 0-3 down for bronchitis.
After the match Vasek commented “This is a huge week for me points wise. I’m going to make a really big jump regardless of how the match goes tomorrow. I’m just excited and will use the confidence I have and keep playing well.
Semis: Raonic vs. Pospisil
These two have never played each other’s at tour level. Their path crossed many times during the Junior tournaments. At that time Pospisil used to have the upper hand as per Milos’ words “He won. He won most of them as a junior, if not all of them…Most of the tournaments came down to us. There was also another junior back then that was playing really well. Most of the events were between the three of us.”. Now it should be a different story.
Good stuff for the Canadian tennis… really good.
