Milos Raonic falls to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the opener – Internazionali BNL d’Italia 2013
Canadian number one, Milos Raonic, had a terrible start to his Internazionali BNL d’Italia campaign, as he suffered a cracking straight sets defeat at the hands of the German veteran, Philipp Kohlschreiber, on Monday. The 22nd ranked contender hunted down Raonic in one hour and 17 minutes, settling the final score line at 7-6(2), 6-4.
The world number 16, Raonic, hasn’t been in the best of his form this season but he had defeated Kohlschreiber in the third round of Australian Open Grand Slam earlier this year. However, the 22-year-old Canadian couldn’t repeat the same results this Monday and ended his Rome Masters voyage in sheer dismay. Raonic posted some real resistance in the opening set of the match but it ended in vain. Kohlschreiber gained momentum from the opener and cruised through the following set to come out as the deserving winner.
No break points were seen in the first set of the match and both players held their respective serves with poise. The score board kept ticking on even terms. Raonic coughed six double faults in the set but managed to hold his entire serve games convincingly to drag the scores to 6-6. A tie-break round came into play and Kohlschreiber quickly grabbed a 3-0 lead with a mini-break. Raonic could win merely two points in the decider and the German veteran kept bagging the crucial points all the way. Kohlschreiber eventually finished off the first set at 7-6(2) to get one up in the contest.
A pretty similar start was seen to the following set of the match. Both players failed to register a break point in the opening six games before Kohlschreiber shifted his gears. The German veteran came up with a crushing break point at the most crucial moment of the match and imposed a 5-3 lead with a successful serve hold in the following game. Raonic won his serve in the ninth game but still failed to register a break point to remain alive in the contest. Kohlschreiber comprehensively served out of the match at 5-4 and booked a place in the second round of the Rome Masters tournament.
Tags: