There’s a moment during the final fight of the martial arts tournament in the movie Bloodsport where after getting off to a flying start Frank Dux, played by Jean Claude Van Damme, is momentarily blinded by his opponent Chong Li. The video, fast tracking the action until that moment, cuts in on Dux crying out in despair as he swings violently either trying to catch Li or in self defense. After moments of drama, and despite the blurred vision, Dux gets Li and the movie ends with the Westerner winning the native. Like it was always expected to end. Milos Raonic’s game at the Chennai Open a fortnight earlier had nearly the exact same plot.
Raonic won the tournament without ever dropping any of his forty eight serve games. A feat only achieved by Roger Federer earlier. One would then imagine that his serve rattled his opponents forcing them to submission. Strangely, his serves – though consistently held – kept getting playable after the first set. Despite being shot at over 200kph, their placement seemed to offer the opponent more time to react and whip a return. And, as an immediate consequence, Raonic appeared to have lost his game overall in the quest to find his best serves, unnecessarily allowing the following sets to tie-breaks.
And then, very quickly, his game would improve overall though the same couldn’t be said of his serves and he’d send his opponents packing. Just as Dux did in Bloodsport despite the blurred vision. Raonic did win his first two rounds at the Australian Open with effortless ease, finally dropping only two of his serve games in six matches this year against a worthy opponent in Phillip Petzschner. But in the match against Lleyton Hewitt last evening, that patch of bad form we saw in the Chennai Open seemed to last three of the four sets they played – his first serve percentage was appalling and midway through the third set, he had more unforced errors to his name than winners.
After winning the first set, the Canadian appeared to not know what we wanted from his game, losing that general sense of direction. And when things fall apart at venues as intimidating as Rod Laver Arena does get while playing an Aussie, defeat is a perfectly fair result.
Wrecking Janko Tipsarevic at the Chennai Open finals, and Nicolas Almagro the previous evening – world number nine and ten respectively – was enough evidence that the surge into the top ten was a matter of playing a few more tournaments well. And that there wasn’t much difference in the quality of tennis between the world number nine and a player ranked thirty. There is a gulf in class, however, between the top four and the rest of the ranks. A serve that opponents couldn’t soak up in their dreams could only land Milos Raonic in the top ten. The climb further up should entirely depend on the reducing of his switch-off duration.
Facing Australia’s most loved Tennis star of recent times at Rod Laver Arena is tough. Even for the defending champion. Naturally, for ATP’s newcomer of last year, the stadium is an unscalable fortress. Like playing Barça at the Nou Camp, possibly. That, despite this knowledge, Milos Raonic started as the favorite against Lleyton Hewitt last evening is a victory of sorts. Or after the defeat, should be viewed as a consolation.
