MELBOURNE, Australia — Milos Raonic is into the Australian Open men’s singles quarterfinals for the fifth time in the last six years.
The 29-year-old Canadian backed up a straight-sets upset of No. 6 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas on Friday with a 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 win over Croatia’s Marin Cilic in the fourth round Sunday afternoon.
Although the 2014 US Open champion Cilic, who is part of Raonic’s generation of players and has also gone through a tough 12 months, was hampered by a lower back issue early on, there wasn’t a lot he could do as Raonic put on another serving clinic.
The Canadian fired 35 aces, bring his total through four matches to 82.
“It was a roller coaster. He was playing better than I was through most of the first set. I was lucky to get through that, made a bit of a run with it,” Raonic said during a post-match interview on court. “I’m just happy to be out here, to be feeling well and to be playing good.
“I haven’t gotten to do this that much over the last few years, so it means a lot to me.”
Cilic did earn two set points late in the third set. Raonic erased the first with a 225 km/hour ace. He erased the second with a 210 km/hour ace.
Through four rounds, Raonic has yet to drop a set. And only one of the 12 sets he has played has gone as far as a tiebreak.
He will face the winner between defending champion Novak Djokovic and No. 14 seed Diego Schwartzman in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Melbourne was the scene for the Canadian’s first major career breakthrough, some of his finest tennis at the Grand Slam level, and one of his most bitter career disappointments in 2016 when he seemed poised to win it all.
A year ago in this city, he also made the quarterfinals. With that, he returned to the top 15 in the rankings for the first time in 18 months.
But later in the year the Canadian’s body let him down, in the way it so often has during his star-crossed career.
Raonic missed the French Open in early June, the US Open last September and then the Davis Cup Finals in Madrid in November.
“It was hard for me to skip Davis Cup, but I had to spend time, because I was ailing (with) a back issue throughout pretty much the whole year,” Raonic said. “I had to take time where I didn’t serve for about a month. But it allowed me to focus on other things, put other things together and get stronger, get fitter.”
The Canadian came into 2020 with guarded optimism.
“I was able to train for about six, seven weeks straight without any hindrances, no setbacks. I was thankful for that,” he said.
Raonic retained coach Mario Tudor, who first joined him on a regular basis at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. last summer.
But he changed up other elements. “I switched around the people that are with me, so the methods have been a little bit different in that sense. Everybody sort of rotated around what I was doing in the gym and also how I was rehabbing and these kind of things,” he said. “I spent two weeks in Boston to help focus on a few things there with a group of guys, and then I spent four weeks training down in the Caribbean.”
Raonic opened the season at the ATP Tour event in Qatar, where he lost his opening match to French left-hander Corentin Moutet. As a result, he arrived in Melbourne a little short of match play.
If he felt healthy, there was no way to anticipate that his big serve would arrive in vintage, devastating form.
After sliding into the final seeded spot (at No. 32) late the previous week, Raonic was able to avoid facing a top seed in the early rounds.
Instead, he defeated lucky loser Lorenzo Giustino of Italy and Chile’s Cristian Garin in straight sets. On Friday, he did the same to 2019 semifinalist and No. 6 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. And then, Cilic.
It was the young Greek star’s first career experience facing the Raonic serve. He found it rather unpleasant.
Tsitsipas is one of several young players who have emerged in the top 10 over the last 3 ½ years, the period since Raonic made the 2016 Wimbledon final. Raonic also has yet to face two rising young Russians, Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev.
“When you look back at it, it’s almost like playing sporadically for the last three years. In its own way, it’s like a hiatus,” Raonic said. “I have to build myself back up and get some momentum, get some consistency, and then give myself an opportunity.”
But for all the new players who blossomed during this mid-career “hiatus”, much is the same.
“I don’t think it’s really changed in any sense. I think maybe just a few guys got filtered out. (Tomas) Berdych, (David) Ferrer, they both retired last year. We have these younger guys that have stepped up, Sascha (Zverev), Stefanos, a few others, as well, and the Canadians,” Raonic said. “I think it’s been a shift, but it’s still the (same) guys winning the big events.”
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles tournament at the Australian Open. The No.6 seeded duo defeated American Hayley Carter and Luisa Stefani of Brazil 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 in the third round on Sunday.
By reaching the quarters, the 27-year-old Canadian matches her best result in women’s doubles at the Australian Open.
In her only previous quarter-final appearance in Melbourne back in 2018, Dabrowski and former partner Yifan Xu of China fell to the eventual runner-ups — Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
Dabrowski, currently ranked eighth in the world in doubles, has a new partner in Ostapenko for the opening Grand Slam of the year. She split with Xu after last season.
Dabrowski and Xu’s best result at a Grand Slam was a runner-up showing at last year’s Wimbledon.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2020.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
