For the past decade, it has been very rare for me to feature a male tennis player who is not part of the current great four players in the men's draw (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray) during the grand slams.
The aforementioned four players have had such a stranglehold on the draws of the grand slams that it has only been once in a while that a player outside of the four is featured whenever the draws for the grand slams comes out. That's how consistent those four are!
However, on rare occasions, like this year's US Open, the first two players I picked from the draw as favorites for this particular tournament, are not part of the four greats! Tsonga is my pic for the top upper half of the draw, and I choose Milos Raonic to top the bottom upper half of the men's draw!
Just like Tsonga, Raonic had a great US summer season, winning Washington DC and performing well in both Toronto (quarters) and Cincinnati (semi's). So it's definitely time for him to step it up a notch in this year's grand slam in Flushing Meadows, especially that he made giant steps as well in this year's French Open (quarters) and Wimbledon (semi's). The next logical step in his arc of improvement is to give a creditable performance at this year's US Open, a semi-final appearance, at least.
His potential opponents include this year's Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka, up-and-coming Japanese player Kei Nishikori and giant player upsetter Lukas Rosol.
It would be interesting to see how Milos handles the expectations now that he is really part of the limelight in men's tennis!
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