It will be a rematch of last year’s semifinals when Roger Federer gets another shot at Milos Raonic during the second week of Wimbledon on Wednesday, this time in the quarters.
Federer leads the head-to-head series 9-3, but Raonic prevailed 6-3, 6-7(3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 at the All-England Club 12 months ago. Thus the Canadian takes a two-match winning streak against Federer into this one, as he also got the job done 6-4, 6-4 in last season’s Brisbane final.
This, however, is obviously a different Federer than the one who was on display in 2016. The 35-year-old Swiss is armed with a clean bill of health and boasts a 28-2 record in 2017 that includes an 18th Grand Slam title at the Australian Open. He has not dropped a set this fortnight while ousting Alexandr Dolgopolov, Dusan Lajovic, Mischa Zverev, and Grigor Dimitrov.
“Roger’s been the best player I think this year, hands down, when he’s been on court,” Raonic commented. “But it’s not about six months or whatnot; it comes down to Wednesday–one day. So I just [have] to try to find a way to try to be better on that day.”
The world No. 7 was second best much of the way on Monday against Alexander Zverev, but he managed to turn things around en route to a 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory. That was preceded by more routine defeats of Jan-Lennard Struff, Mikhail Youzhny, and Albert Ramos-Vinolas. Raonic is hoping to make a return trip to the Wimbledon final, but he has not been the same player this season as he was when he surged to No. 3 in the world in 2016. The 26-year-old had been a disappointing 8-6 in his last 14 matches prior to arriving in London and he came in at just 16th in the race to the World Tour Finals.
Last summer it was Federer who was dealing with a knee injury and Raonic who was playing the best tennis of his career. To an extent, the roles are now reversed. Raonic has struggled with physical problems in 2017, while Federer–aside from skipping the entire clay-court swing–has been the tour’s best player.
Wednesday’s result should reflect that current state of affairs.
Pick: Federer in 4
[polldaddy poll=9785798]
roget will again take over goat status if he wins?
from who? he is the only goat.
Flash, it would appear that you haven’t been around this site very long… 98% of the people who regularly comment on this site would rather die than call Federer the “GOAT”. 🙂
Like some who would kill rather than even have rafa in the goat conversations
Very true, Vmk! Both sides feel very strongly about it. I was just making a joke about someone suggesting that Fed could be the GOAT on such a heavily pro-Rafa site. 🙂
I am fortunate in not believing in the GOAT concept. So I don’t have to get involved in any arguments. I agree with Rod Laver, who said that a player can only be the greatest if his era. Both Rafa and Fed are the greatest in their era. Why must there be one?
Of course Rafa should be included in any discussion of one of the greatest players. I think that Rod Laver was the greatest in his era. Sampras was the greatest of his era.
It is a travesty to leave out past great champions in this pursuit of one arbitrarily anointed so-called GOAT. The Fed fans were the ones who started this nonsense. Because they wanted to be fans of the GOAT and bask in his reflected glory.
I am not about to buy into this insanity. I prefer to celebrate all of the greatest players throughout the decades. They all have earned it.
nny, all the discussion about who is the GOAT is so delusional and immature. People need to grow up and improve themselves. They are just projecting their weaknesses in these kind of debates. It’s almost impossible to find a yt video without any stupid comments about a Nadal & Federer and who is better. People are weak. It’s time to evolve and grow not only muscle mass. GOAT is just an illusion invented because people have nothing better to do.
Perfectly stated, Eugene!
Eugene,
You will get no argument from me! I was trying to be polite about it. But I think you summed it up perfectly!
?Eugene!
As I’ve said here before, many will agree that Nadal is the clay GOAT; Roger is the GOAT off-clay. Short of that, I think everyone should be able to agree that Nadal is better than Roger on clay; Roger is better that Rafa on all other surfaces.
At least, that is so if we go by overall performance in the biggest tournaments.
Facts hahahah
I predict Cilic will red-line in the final. He was a bit tight against Muller but in the final he’ll play with nothing to lose and his peak is good enough to beat Fed. Should be a classic Wimbledon final between the 2 best players in the world right now on this surface.
I know that it’s easy to assume Fed will have his way with Berdych, but we should keep in mind that he had match point against Fed in Miami this year, and really kinda choked that one away. I know that was only best-of-three, but I get the feeling Berdych is going to just let it fly, really take his chances and pull the trigger quickly. I really wouldn’t be surprised if Berdych surprises everyone… That being said, I also wouldn’t be surprised if the match goes exactly the way their match went in Australia this year- a Fed steamrolling. We shall see. Assuming Cilic makes the final, Berdych followed by Cilic, at Wimbledon, is no walk in the park for anyone…
Fed didn’t play that well in Miami though. Just won that tournament off of confidence
True, Benny, he didn’t play as well as he did in Indian Wells or most AO matches. But just from a mental standpoint, that Miami match combined with winning their last Wimbledon match could give Berdych some confidence. If Fed plays nearly as flawlessly as he did for most of the Raonic match today, then Berdych will have his hands full…
He will and he will raise his level in the final.
Raonic and Berdych are different types of players, Raonic rushes the net for he knows he can’t win from the baseline. Berdych otoh is a hard hitting baseliner.
Berdych has to serve well and hit his ground strokes well to keep Fed at the baseline if he wants to win this one; if Fed gets to the net, Berdych will be rushed and will make more errors.
I hope Berdych does better than his Miami match this year.
I had no idea about this until I just looked at their head2head, but Cilic and Querrey have played twice at Wimbledon (2009 and 2012), and both times were epic 5-setters! The 2012 was apparently extra-epic because it’s was 17-15 in the fifth! So if history has any say, we could be in for a battle on Friday. Yes, Cilic is a better player than he was in 2012, but so is Sam Querrey…
Querreys confidence must be high. To beat the defending champion two years running, not to mention Acapulco this year.But, if I was a betting man, Id go for Cilic because he’s the more experience in Slams.