Wimbledon, England—
Bill Simons
A reporter confronted Milos Raonic, bravely reminding the Canadian that he had three coaches and that can be a lot of voices for a chef to sort out. Without hesitation, Raonic said don’t worry, “I am the CEO of Milos Raonic tennis.”
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Raonic’s parents are engineers and, noted his new consultant John McEnroe, “if you talk to Milos in geometric terms he gets it, you see the mathematician at work.”
In contrast, the tennis poet Roger Federer is an artist.
Ironically, off-court Raonic follows art more than anyone on tour. He’ll talk about Ai Weiwei or Andy Warhol, drop in on a little-known gallery in LA, or reflect on the Louvre in Paris.
But on court, the Canadian is more of an adept lumberjack who mows down what’s in front of him. Today, a considerable Swiss tree was directly in his path to the final. Never mind that, in this era, Roger is the King of tennis. Today, business prevailed over royalty – Raonic won 6-3, 6-7(3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
It was a shock. It seemed like a nanosecond ago that Roger won a battle for the ages against Marin Cilic. Perhaps now he was destined to end his four-year drought and win a Slam, while winning his eighth Wimbledon.
Plus Raonic – a mature-beyond-his-25-years fellow – is a poster boy for the wannabe generation that makes plenty of noise but ultimately is putty in the considerable hands of the Big Four – Novak, Roger, Rafa and Murray. Yes, 6’5″ Milos is big. Yes, Raonic’s serve thunders almost as loud as John Isner’s or Ivo Karlovic’s. But he’s a far better athlete. His famous hair – which has its own Twitter account – is said to never move, even in a hurricane.
But Milos himself moves. He bends. He comes to net and scores volley winners. He wins tournaments in places like Bangkok, Brisbane and San Jose. But he’s fallen short on the biggest stages where reputations are made. At the 2014 Wimbledon semis, he lost to Roger. In the Aussie Open this February, he was playing superb ball against Andy Murray, but his body gave out. At the Queens Wimbledon warm-up, he was up a set and 3-0. He collapsed.
Virtually all of Centre Court figured the Canadian would again lose. Yes, he won the first set with some ease, 6-4. But in the second set he couldn’t convert on any of his four set points. Federer evened the match and then pulled ahead two sets to one. Tennisdom breathed easy. Its beloved Swiss warrior was on course to giving his adoring fans another come-from-behind win, just as he had done two days ago. Plus, amazingly, the best grass court player in history had never lost in any of his 10 previous Wimbledon semis. With Raonic up 6-5, the fourth set seemed inevitably bound for a tie-break. Then an Alpine avalanche rattled sedate Centre Court.
Federer – whose serve has been so wonderful throughout Wimbledon – double-faulted. (This is not a typo.) Then the man who’d double-faulted just twice in the entire tournament double-faulted AGAIN. We can understand Steph Curry missing two foul shots in a row. But Federer’s double-double at crunch time was beyond belief. Moments later, when facing his third set point, Roger had an easy forehand he should have stroked with ease to an open court – no problem. Instead he hit it right to Milos, who promptly passed Roger to force another fifth set for the almost 36-year-old legend, who before Tuesday hadn’t played a five-set match all year long.
“Very sad about that,” Roger explained later. “And angry at myself because never should I allow him to get out of that set that easily.”
In other words, suddenly things looked rough for the game’s smoothest operator.
But it got worse. In the fifth game of the decisive set there was another shock. Awkward is not in Mr. Grace’s vocabulary. Fed doesn’t slip on banana peels, balance is his brand. But Roger got caught up in a wild scramble point and stumbled badly, suddenly fell flat in a hump on the mid-court lawn and was slow to get up before he walked to his chair, where a medical attendant came out to check the same left knee he had surgery on in February.
Soon he was back on court. But he later he admitted that he had never fallen like that before and he wasn’t the same after his tumble. Raonic took full advantage. While Roger was clearly tired, a half-step slower and serving tentatively, Raonic was focused, imposing, full of belief and serving at 140 mph. He’d cranked an incredible cross-court forehand to break and go up 3-1. Soon he secured his 6-3, 6-7(3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 win.
Certainly the engineer’s son who grew up to be the CEO of Milos Raonic Tennis had to be pleased. His numbers wereimpressive – 23 aces, 89% first serve points won, 68% of net points won. The result was even better.
After losing three weeks ago in Queens to Andy Murray, Raonic told the Brit that he hoped for a rematch. Milos hasn’t won any of their last five matches. But, then again, that’s why CEOs get the big money – and tennis’ biggest serving CEO just might win $2,580,000 on Sunday. That would look mighty fine on anyone’s bottom line.
