At age 21 Milos Raonic was ranked fourteenth in the world. He spoke openly to the press of his ambition. How he will never be satisfied. How he will always strive to be better. He changed his twitter biography. “It’s time to step up,” it read. What’s happened?
Four years have passed. Milos Raonic is still ranked 14 in the world and his twitter profile is still reminding him, ‘It’s time to step up.’ So far, he hasn’t.
In September 2015, Raonic posted a picture of instagram of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston with the caption, “I’m going to show you how great I am.” Clearly there was some symbolic meaning for Raonic. But a man can only go on for so long talking about his ambitions. Without action and results people begin to stop listening.
People are beginning to stop listening to Milos Raonic. Let’s look at Raonic’s last four years of delusion:
In 2012, Raonic was asked about the his draw for the French Open, in which he was slated to meet the seven-time Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. “He wants what I want and one us is going to take it away from the other guy. I want to be that guy.” Milos lost in the third round to Juan Monaco, who was mauled 6-2 6-0 6-0 by Nadal in the following round.
In 2014, before a Wimbledon semi-final with Roger Federer, Raonic said, “I’m not playing a seventeen-time Grand Slam champion, I’m not playing a 32 year old man, I’m not playing the father of two sets of twins. I’m playing someone who’s standing in the way of what I want to achieve. The goal is to be the best player in the world and this is just another step on the ladder.” Federer dismissed Raonic in straight sets. As a friend remarked after the match, “We should have known Dumbledore would dispose of Hagrid.”
Later in 2014, when discussing the ranking situation, Raonic said, “Novak and Rafa have a threshold on the top 2 spots. The rest of the cards, this year specifically, are up for grabs.” Raonic subsequently slipped down seven places in the rankings.
During a bleak 2015, Raonic again reminded us of his burning ambition. “I’m eager, I’m very eager…the amount I hate to lose is, I think, pretty extraordinary.” Before the US Open, he was asked if he would be last man standing at Flushing Meadows. “Yes,” Milo fired back intuitively, “now more than ever.” In the third round Milos went down meekly to Feliciano Lopez. He was, admittedly, carrying a slight injury.
They say a man’s worth is like a fraction, where the numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.
In Milos’s case, I don’t think this is true. In interviews he comes across as an honest, funny, and hard-working man. His problem is his near unflappable self-belief, his conviction that he can simply will his way past Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic to a Grand Slam title.
So far, on the biggest stage, Raonic hasn’t laid a glove on his perceived ‘rivals’. He has met the ‘Big Four’ five times in Grand Slam matches and lost every single one of the fifteen sets they’ve played. Perhaps he would be more suited to boxing, a sport where professionals are supposed to big up their chances to the press, even if they have spent the majority of their careers being pushed around like an air hockey puck. It is worryingly easy, in fact, to imagine Raonic as a jobbing amateur boxer: his ungainly right hook, his feet getting caught in the skipping rope, the referee hoisting his sleeved arm into the air as he wins the undercard on a points decision.
That Raonic hasn’t yet proved dangerous in big matches allows us to file his comments away under ‘amusing misapprehensions’. It would be different if say, Djokovic before the Wimbledon final failed to acknowledge that Federer was seven time champion. Why ? Because there is a genuine rivalry there. Until Raonic is a genuine rival the tennis elite chuckle as he decides to re-tweet 24 newspaper reports of his recent ATP 250 title in Brisbane.
The reason why Roanic hasn’t stepped up ? Several parts of his game are flawed. In 76 return games against the ‘Big Four’ in Grand Slams, Raonic has fashioned only three break point chances and converted just one. His return game clearly needs work. His movement around the court is painfully evocative of a rook on a chessboard and his ground-strokes lack the consistency of those above him. So what did Raonic decide to spend his 2015 off-season working on his…(Drum roll please) ?
…On his serve. “I know I could do better so I spent a lot of my time on it,” he said.
Raonic is the golfer booming ball after ball on the driving range, neglecting all aspects of his short game, puffing out his chest proudly after finally cracking a 350 yarder. The season began and Raonic soon realized he needed some touch in and around the net, with too many routine drop volleys ricocheting off his paddle in the direction of the players’ box.
So what does 2016 have in store for Raonic? Another year in the shadows, re-tweeting small victories and quoting Steve Jobs and Kobe Bryant on Instagram after defeats? Well, not if we take his word for it. Apparently Raonic has “got [his] stuff back together.” I am sure he does. At least until Wawrinka turns the big beast belly up in the fourth round of the Australian Open.
By Tom and Harry Dry
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