Milos Raonic downs Tobias Kamke; advances into the second round – Gerry Weber Open 2011
Eight seed, Milos Raonic of Canada downed Tobias Kamke of Germany in straight sets in front of his home crowd at Gerry Weber Open 2011, an ATP World Tour 250 series event held in Halle, Germany. He registered a 7-6(2), 6-3 victory
over the 25-year-old German to advance into the second round on Wednesday.
Rising star Raonic, ranked 28th in the ATP World Tour rankings, took one hour and eleven minutes to triumph over the German, ranked 60 places below him, on their first meeting. He faced Kamke for the first time and after
dominating in the first set tie-breaker, he raised his level of game in the final set to take the lead in their head-to-head series by 1-0.
20-year-old Canadian experienced a hard fought battle in the opening set and despite holding his entire serves through blistering forehands from his box of tricks, Raonic failed to find a breakpoint opportunity. As a result, the
set went to tie-breaker where the Canadian rolled balls expertly onto the lines to prevail and eventually clinched the opener with a 7-6(2) win.
The youngster kept momentum rolling into the final set and smoothly held entire serves through his amazing agility. He faced zero breakpoint and converted the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage to pocket the set with
a 6-3 score line.
Overall, booming star Raonic outclassed the German completely in every department of tennis. He smashed tremendous fourteen aces and produced a much better first serve share of 75 percent as compared to Kamke’s 56 percent. The
Canadian also earned a spectacular 90 percent win on it.
"I’m very happy how things are going and I’m very happy that I’m playing so well on something that’s a completely new experience for me, playing on grass, especially at this level," said Raonic after reaching the last eight of
a grass court event for the first time. "Everything is very positive and it gives me a lot of confidence and a lot to look forward to."
Raonic has had an amazing season so far after making a nine match winning streak in which he won the title at San Jose and made a final berth at Memphis. He then made a semi-final berth at Estoril before falling to a four match
losing streak mainly due to lower back injury he faced. The Canadian lost in the opening round at French Open to a lower ranked German, Michael Berrer before entering this opening tournament of the grass court season. He re-ignited his form in this event as
he trashed Spaniard Pablo Andujar with a breadstick in the opening round.
Up next for Raonic is another German, Philipp Petzschner who triumphed over Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver in straight sets to reach this spot. He has yet to lose a set in this event.
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