Bad news for Federer’s fans as Roger lost in the quarters to Milos Raonic to lose hopes for world no.1.
The Canadian played at his very best especially with his devastating serve (21 aces) and Roger didn’t capitalize on thefew occasions he had.
The key moment in the 1st set was the tiebreak. Roger had a mini-break in the very first point to lose the following 2 on his own serve. That was enough to finally give the opener to Milos.
In the second set everything was rather even. Roger couldn’t convert an important break point when he was 5-4 40-30 up (Milos fired another great ace) and the Swiss was broken in the following game.This was the second time in their previous encounters that Raonic maanged to break Roger (95 games!!!). The final result was 7-6 (5) 7-5.Match Stats
Some numbers
It was a very frustrating afternoon for the Maestro that was clearly superior to Raonic during baseline rallies. The only combination that wasn’t good for Roger was when Milos had him on his inside-out forehand, for the rest it was just about the Maestro. However, the Canadian was outstanding in capitalizing on his great serve… the difference was that. This was the first loss of Roger Federer to Raonic in 7 matches.
Bye-Bye no.1
Federer was already 490pts away from Djokovic in the Year to Date rankings and he had to reduce the gap in Paris (that means that he had to do better than Novak). Things got on the other way as Roger won’t go beyond the quarters while Nole has qualified for the semis in Bercy. The Swiss can still get the no.1 spot if he wins the Finals and Nole will have a truly horrible tournament in London. The Swiss can definitely win the WTF, the problem is Nole… he is too good to miss this chance.
Raonic: This was the biggest victory for me
“It would have to be up there definitely at this stage of my career, with the level I have gotten myself to, that’s for sure. And considering all the circumstances around it, I think this was the biggest win for me.”
Raonic will play Berdych in the semifinal. With this victory Milos qualifies for London for the first time. Good stuff for Canada!
