Canadian player Milos Raonic returns the ball to French Marc Gicquel during the Wimbledon Tennis Championships at the All England Tennis Club, in southwest London on June 20. AFP photo / Glyn Kirk
Photograph by: GLYN KIRK, AFP/Getty Images
LONDON — Milos Raonic’s first official day at Wimbledon really began at about 11:15 a.m. local time on Monday morning, some 45 minutes before his scheduled first-round match, when he heard this announcement:
“Marc Gicquel to the referee’s office.”
Knowing scheduled opponent Fabio Fognini of Italy had been injured seriously enough in Paris to default his French Open quarter-final match against Novak Djokovic two days before it was even scheduled, Raonic had a feeling this might be relevant.
It was.
The 20-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., dealt with his first Wimbledon match, the last-minute opponent switch, and the intimate, noisy confines of Court No. 14 like a veteran as he posted a 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3 win over Gicquel, the lucky loser from France.
“I think I’m happy with how I dealt with it, because it’s the first time it’s happened to me,” said Raonic, noting the difference between Fognini’s heavily tospinned strokes and Gicquel’s flat and sliced deliveries that required the six-foot-five Raonic to get much lower to the ground, and stay there.
“All in all, I found a way. I didn’t know much about him, so I had to sort of feel it out through the match. But I’m happy with how I responded to it,” he said.
Gicquel didn’t know all that much about Raonic, either. But he had the gist of the plot.
“I saw him playing on TV. I know he had a good serve,” he said afterwards, laughing at the obviousness of that remark.
Raonic blasted 25 aces past Gicquel, putting his ATP Tour-leading total over 500 for the season. And with that, not a single double fault.
“Sometimes I had to choose one side. Very fast,” Gicquel said. “He can do a slice, and go (down the middle), he can serve every side. Yeah, I cannot read his serve.”
Perhaps that was why Gicquel, who won the coin toss, elected to receive serve to start the match.
Might as well get the bad news over with right away.
Raonic kicked off the proceedings with three consecutive aces, and added two more when he served out the first set.
But in the second set, serving second and having to hold to even things up each time, Raonic found Gicquel reading that serve a little bit better, forcing him to work a little harder.
At 4-5, even though Raonic did nothing really wrong, Gicquel took advantage of a lucky let cord and earned a set point.
Raonic let fly a big first serve, then two more after that, to hold at 5-5.
He then closed out the second-serve tiebreaker with an ace, and punctuated it with a loud “Vamosssss!”
When he served for the match, Raonic served two more aces.
Raonic was one of four Canadians scheduled Monday. But by early evening, the rains hit the All-England Club.
And although they closed the roof on the Centre Court, allowing two more matches to be completed, the rest of the day’s play was a complete washout.
Stephanie Dubois of Laval, Que., was just about to take the court for her first-round match against American Irina Falconi when the courts were covered. The other two, Rebecca Marino of Vancouver and Aleksandra Wozniak of Blainville, Que., never got close.
All three are scheduled at the same time, first on their respective courts on Tuesday.
The fifth and final Canadian in the singles, Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., also is scheduled to play his first-round match Tuesday.
Raonic had actually seen Court No. 14 before. In fact, the last time he played on the lawns of Wimbledon, he played on that court in the junior doubles with countryman Vasek Pospisil.
“I think we lost that doubles, so I guess it was good to even out the record on that court,” Raonic said.
Three years later, he finally made it back.
“I didn’t know when this time was going to come, that I’m playing at these tournaments. And I’m really fortunate how quick the progress has been this year,” he said. “It’s amazing to be coming here for the first time and to be seeded. It’s a great opportunity, and a great thing.”
The No. 31 seed (his actual ranking is No. 25, but he was downgraded by the grass-court specific seedings used for the men here) had a fairly full news conference, given his standing.
It’s no secret that a big server is always dangerous at Wimbledon, even if the courts aren’t as lightning quick as they used to be. And a potential third-round matchup with defending champion Rafael Nadal also has whetted the appetite.
“It would mean a lot. First of all, it’s a third round of a Grand Slam, so that’s a plus,” Raonic said. “But if it does get to that, I think it’s a good opportunity.”
Raonic wasn’t looking past his second round, which will be against wild card Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.
Muller, a lefty with more than a passing resemblance to Montrealer-turned-Brit Greg Rusedski, was a top-60 player five years ago who, after falling way down in the rankings, has rebounded back to the top 100.
He’s also tall, and a huge server; the 28-year-old dropped 35 aces on veteran German Tommy Haas in his four-set, first-round win Monday.
“I can’t control how many aces he hits, how many lines he hits. That’s going to be up to him,” Raonic said of Muller. “Outside of that, I’ll try to figure out a way.”
Montreal Gazette
smyles@montrealgazette.com
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