I really missed Milos Raonic play last season as I heard he was injured and missed a couple of the slams. Because of it, his ranking dipped a bit and I found him ranked #14 going into this year's Australian Open.
And I was pleasantly surprised how well he was playing because in their match today with Stan Wawrinka, he actually led the Swiss, two sets to nil - and I really thought he would win it in three!
However, since Stan is so experienced, I was not surprised to see him calmly fight back and win the next two sets!
It was a great sign of maturity then on Milos' behalf that after losing the next two sets, to sublimely just dominate the fifth set again, as he led 5-2 - and served out the match.
These past few years, it has been tough for the other lower-ranked players to make any headway as there are now five top guys to deal with, aside from the almost impossible to break top 3 (Djokovic, Murray and Federer). Add Wawrinka and Nadal to the mix, other lower-ranked players have to defeat them, just to be able to reach the semi's.
It happened before in the 2014 US Open, when both Cilic and Nishikori made breakthrough wins. It didn't happen last year.
This year, since Nadal was dispatched in the first round, and Wawrinka in this round, it allows Raonic and Monfils to have a chance to go to a semifinal.
Raonic has one appearance in a semifinal in the 2014 Wimbledon. This could be his second, if he plays as well today against Monfils in their QF encounter.
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