By Canadian Press

Canada’s Raonic takes it easy ahead of match vs. Zverev at Australian Open

Jan 19, 2019 | 9:30 AM

MELBOURNE, Australia — It’s been a long Australian Open for Milos Raonic. But this isn’t the first time he’s advanced to the second week of a Grand Slam tournament, so he knows just what to do.

Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., is the only Canadian left in singles competition at the Australian Open and will face Germany’s Alexander Zverev on Monday. Raonic picked up wins last week against tough opponents in Nick Kyrgios, Stan Wawrinka and Pierre-Hugues Herbert to advance to the Round of 16.

Those three wins, especially a gruelling four-set victory over Wawrinka that was over four hours long, challenged Raonic but he sees a lot of positives in being tested early in a tournament.

“I have been pushed. I have been having stressful moments in matches that I’ve handled quite well,” said the 16th-seeded Raonic. “I think that gives me some ease going into the challenges further along.

“Obviously, there’s some kind of things you don’t really know how you’re going to pull out when you have those kind of guys up in the first few rounds. But I’m happy with the way I did.”

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Raonic had a day off between the wins over Wawrinka and Herbert and took it easy, going to see the award-winning movie Green Book and getting in a workout at the gym instead of hitting the court for more practice. He expects he’ll do the same before playing Zverev.

“It’s not like people think: you come here and go on court for an hour. That’s not the scenario. You have to come an hour and a half early, warm up, cool down,” said Raonic after the win over Herbert on Saturday. “It ends up being a three-hour hoorah that you stay out here. I stayed away from that, tried to give myself a chance to get in as much fluid, eat well, to recover and be fresh for today.”

Zverev and Raonic have split their two previous matches on the ATP Tour. Zverev beat Raonic in the 2017 Rome quarterfinals before Raonic returned the favour later that year, beating Zverev in five sets in the Round of 16 at Wimbledon.

“I mean, we played twice, once on clay, once on grass, which were two very different matches obviously,” said Zverev, who, like Raonic, relies on a big, powerful serve. “He’s playing very well. Only lost a set to (Wawrinka) in the tournament so far.

“It’s going to be a fun match. Obviously not a lot of rallies, not a lot of long points. We’ll see how it goes.”

Although Zverev has a higher ATP Tour ranking than Raonic — No. 4 in the world vs. No. 17 — the Canadian has more experience in Grand Slam playoffs, having made the Wimbledon final in 2016, the Australian Open semis in 2016 and the French Open quarterfinals in 2014. Raonic feels that gap in experience won’t make a difference though.

“I think it’s irrelevant because you don’t know how those things are going to sort of play out,” said Raonic. “That’s sort of on his end of things. I’ve been here quite a few times now, the start of the second week. I got to just focus on the things I know I need to do.”

Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Croatia’s Mate Pavic continue the defence of their Australian Open mixed-doubles championship on Sunday. The top-seeded duo face Australia’s Alexei Popyrin and Priscilla Hon in the Round of 32.

The Canadian Press