|
 Drawn to face Federer in the quarter-finals, the 23-year-old knew
a seventh successive defeat against the Swiss great would almost
certainly have scuppered his chances of qualifying for the elite
season-ender for the first time.
Undaunted, he produced one of the best matches of his career to win
7-6(5) 7-5 and followed that up with victory over Tomas Berdych to
reach the final, where he lost to Novak Djokovic.
Not long ago, Raonic often struggled to assert himself against the
top guns, but not any more.
"It's great the things I was able to produce in Paris when my back
was up against the wall," the Montenegro-born giant, who reached his
first grand slam semi-final at Wimbledon this year, told reporters
at London's O2 Arena.
"Knowing that I was behind in the points (race) and I had to fight
my way through to make it possible. I'm happy with that."
 Three years after Raonic was voted ATP newcomer of the year, he now
stands at number eight in the world rankings and is part of a small
battalion of players expected to be challenging the established "big
four" for majors in the next couple of years.
While still packing plenty of heavy artillery in his game, notably
on serve, Raonic has begun to add better defense and swifter
movement to his repertoire.
However, he said that it was between the ears where the biggest
improvement had come.
FEDERER AWAITS
"I think the understanding of what I need to do in specific
situations, I think I have a much clearer vision of how to go about
things now," Raonic, the first Canadian to qualify for the
tournament, said.
"But just because you have the vision you still have to execute and
I've been able to do that."
[to top of second column] |
Raonic could not have picked a tougher opener in London, with
six-times former champion Federer waiting to exact revenge for that
Paris beating on Sunday. He then will face Andy Murray and Japan's
Kei Nishikori.
"I think the only thing that is quite different is that the other
three times we played this year we had already played quite a few
matches already," he said.
"This is going to be a new challenge as he's been here many times
but I will have to find my game straight away."
While much has been made of three debutantes qualifying for London
and the fact that two of this year's grand slam titles went to
first-time winners in Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic, Raonic said the
likes of Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal were still ahead of
the pack.
"The one thing you see from the top three guys is that they are
always re-inventing themselves because they know they won't stay at
the top doing the same old thing," he said.
"They know there are too many guys hungry to improve."
(Editing by John O'Brien)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
