Milos Raonic will be gunning for his second title in two straight weeks when he goes up against Juan Martin Del Potro on Sunday in Tokyo. Both players are looking to hoist a third winner’s trophy this year.
(1) Juan Martin Del Potro vs. (3) Milos Raonic
Del Potro and Raonic will be squaring off for the second time in their careers when they battle for the Rakuten Japan Open title on Sunday. Their only previous encounter came this summer on the hard courts of Montreal, where Raonic won a controversial third-round showdown 7-5, 6-4. The Canadian touched the net on a crucial point late in the second set but it went uncalled–by the umpire and by Raonic–and he won the match just few minutes later.
Fast forward two months and Raonic is playing the best tennis of his 2013 campaign–even better than the form that carried him to a runner-up finish in Montreal. The world No. 11 triumphed last week in Bangkok and he has improved his record for the year to 41-17 thanks to straight-set Tokyo wins over Go Soeda, Jeremy Chardy, Lukas Lacko, and Ivan Dodig.
Like Raonic, Del Potro went through the hard-court summer with some stellar play (title in Washington, D.C. and semifinal in Cincinnati) interspersed with disappointment. The seventh-ranked Argentine is back in action for the first time since the U.S. Open and clearly benefiting from a month of rest. He booked his spot in this final with defeats of Marcos Baghdatis, Carlos Berlocq, Alexandr Dolgopolov, and Nicolas Almagro.
Del Potro has an obvious edge from the baseline and he will be eager to avenge what transpired at the Rogers Cup, but Raonic’s serve is the x-factor. Tokyo’s third seed has fired at least 11 aces and won at least 87 percent of his first-serve points in all four of his matches. He has not been broken this week and has faced only one break point. One more similar service performance will land Raonic another title.
Pick: Raonic in 3
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Delpo in 2, one a tie-breaker.
Ricky makes a compelling case for picking Raonic over Delpo nevertheless I’m plumping for del Potro in 3 with two tiebreaks. Just a hunch.
Ha Ha, hadn’t seen your comment when I wrote mine. The Montreal incident will be in the minds of both men which I think will favour Dell Boy.
Ricky still making up his mind about the Beijing pick. 😉
^^^he’s already picked Rafa which I am not happy about, tbh……….
RT @TennisReporters: “With his win over Almagro to reach Tokyo final, Del Potro passes Federer for No. 6 in rankings. Rog returns next week in Shanghai”
Whoopsadaisy!
Delpo takes the first set in the tiebreaker. Both he and Raonic served their one and only DFs in the TB.
I went for Delpo in three. I am not surprised to see the first set go to a tb.
Delpo’s double fault was far less costly than Raonic double faulting to give Delpo a set point. He capitalized on it, too.
Good match so far.
Do you think so? See-saw, yes but too bam wham for my liking. The best bit is listening to Robbie and Nick trying to decide when to change horses – they always favour the favourite until there is a momentum shift and then suddenly swap sides.
You are too funny! Just to be clear, it’s not my kind of tennis but it was competitive and not a lopsided one. So that was one good thing.
Robbie and Nick just kill me! 🙂
Granted it was competitive and by no means a forgone conclusion which is not always the case in finals.
Congratulations to me! I called it Delpo in 2, one a tie-breaker, yesterday at 2:35 pm
Well done Delpo, justice for what happened in Montreal………
Well done you. I should’ve had the courage of my convictions. Was tempted to say in straights but thought that would be tempting fate.
As I recall, Delpo had a niggling back injury when he played Raonic in Montreal and that affected his serve. He seemed pretty healthy in Tokyo and imo, has a better transition game than Raonic and that’s what convinced me he would shade it……..
Ooeeeeee. And what’s more in straight sets.
Well done Dell Boy.
The Japanese speeches always crack me up.
I’d forgotten Delpo only went to Tokyo to make up the numbers when Federer withdrew.
^^^Really? Didn’t know Fed had been entered to play………….
Nor did I but one of the commentators mentioned it towards the end of match. Koenig or Lester said the organisers offered delPo a wild card when Federer was unable to play.which left them short on star attractions.
RT @SI_BTBaseline: “Juan Martin del Potro is back into the Top 5 for the first time since May 2010. That is way too long. Welcome back. #atp”
Pulled the trigger too quickly before I’d competed the comment. I interpreted what he said as meaning Federer had withdrawn. Maybe he had never entered in the first place and with everybody else flocking to Beijing they found themselves short of a top 10 player.