Milos Raonic raced into the quarterfinals of his hometown tournament on Thursday day night with a serving clinic against American teen Jared Donaldson. The fourth seed was near-perfect on serve and did not face a break point in the match as he cruised past Donaldson in just over an hour with a 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Raonic cruises through opener
Raonic came out firing, hitting 146 MPH on his first serve of the match and followed it up with 147 MPH, both of which Donaldson blocked more out of self-defense than an attempt to return. The young American had no answer for Raonic’s raw power both on serve and off the ground in the early stages and was broken in his first service game to trail 2-0. The fourth seed had a chance to take an early stranglehold on the set in his next return game when he held a break point, but sent his return long.
It would take four return games for Donaldson to win a point on the Raonic serve that was not either a double fault or an unforced error by the Canadian. At 2-4, the teen hit a passing shot that Raonic could not return, but it did not help him get any closer to breaking serve. Serving to stay in the set, Donaldson would struggle again and was broken to surrender the opening set.
Nearly identical second set goes to Raonic
The second set was almost a mirror image of the first. Raonic dropped a 143 MPH bomb to start the set and followed it up with another 146 MPH later in the game. Just like the opener, he broke Donaldson in the following game to lead 2-0. The trend continued when, after holding for 3-0, he had break points to take a 4-0 lead. The Canadian raced ahead 0-40, but his teenage opponent was up to the task, saving all three and going on to hold.
The script final varied when Raonic held a break point at 30-40 in the sixth game, but sent his return long. Before too long, Donaldson found himself serving to stay in the set once again. This time, he held his nerve and his serve to put the pressure back on the Canadian. But as he had been all day, Raonic was lights out on serve, holding to 15 with four unreturned serves.
By the numbers
Even by Raonic standards, it was a strong serving performance. Donaldson never had a chance on return as the Canadian pounded 15 aces, won 80 percent of his first serve points and 73 percent of his second serves. In total, Raonic only lost ten points on serve. He did not face a single break point in the match. While Donaldson’s first serve was solid, he was made to pay for only putting 54 percent of his first serves in play, as Raonic ate up the Americans second serve, winning 19 of 28 points when Donaldson missed his first serve.
Raonic will take on Gael Monfils in the quarterfinals. The Canadian has already beaten Monfils in a pair of quarterfinals this year and has spent the same amount of time on court in all of his matches combined this week in Toronto as Monfils did today alone in his third round match.