Canadian tennis star Milos Raonic said he could have played better against Lucas Pouille but the Frenchman deserved the win. World No. 31 Pouille defeated the 16th-seeded Canadian 7-6 (4) 6-3 6-7 (2) 6-4 to reach his maiden Grand Slam semi-final at Melbourne Park.
Raonic failed to serve out for the opener in the 10th game of the first set as the Frenchman went on to steal the opener in a tie-break. The Frenchman then broke the Canadian in the fourth game of the second set and held on to his serve to take a 2-0 set lead.
Raonic cruised past the fourth-set tie-break to force a fourth set — where he failed to serve out to stay in the match in the 10th game. Well, I think I wish maybe I would have played better. Thats the only thing.
But I saw the way hes been playing this week. The last few matches, hes been playing extremely well. I knew he was going to make things difficult, Raonic said post-match. I wish I would have just served better and cleaned up some aspects of my game where I felt like I was just a little bit behind.
Pouille earned 14 break points during the match and converted three of them. Yes, a few times he did surprise me. But then, no, when I sort of had the chance to look back at it, I dont think I put in a high first-serve percentage today relative to the other days.
I just didnt take care of the things I needed to take care of, Raonic said, when asked if he was surprised by how Pouille returned his serve. Raonic made a promising start to his Australian Open campaign but in the end he is leaving Melbourne Park without his maiden title.
Just got to evaluate where Im at. Have to have a checkup done on my knee, then see whats sort of in the schedule for the next few weeks. Im not sure if I can play the Davis Cup, switching surfaces, for one week.
Im going to sort of take the next 24 hours to make that decision. Then it would be to play indoors in Rotterdam, Raonic said of his upcoming plans. Also read: Stefanos Tsitsipas: It was tough to fall asleep after beating Roger Federer
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