Raonic Shocked in Kremlin Cup Opener
Canadian Milos Raonic was ousted in the second-round of the Kremlin Cup on Thursday, falling to Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. The 116th ranked player in the world bounced the tournament’s top seed to notch the first top 10 win of his career and hurt Raonic’s chances of qualifying for the ATP World Tour Finals in the process.
The big-serving Canadian entered the match in the eighth and final spot for the end-of-the-year finals, holding slight advantages over David Ferrer and Andy Murray. He fired 15 aces at Berankis, but also surrendered four key break points that the Lituanian took full advantage of.
Despite the 15 aces, Raonic’s serve was affected by an ailing right arm that was heavily strapped, forcing him to land just 59 percent of his first serves. He allowed a break point in the third set which really tipped the scales in Berankis’ favor.
The loss does a lot of damage to Raonic’s bid for the Race to London. Currently in the eighth spot, he was just 35 points ahead of Ferrer, and 95 ahead of Murray, prior to his match with Berankis. The loss will become even more magnified if Ferrer, the top seed, and Murray, the second seed advance deep into the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Austria this week.
The fourth-seeded Fabio Fognini was also eliminated from the Kremlin Cup Wednesday. The Italian fell to Russian Mikhail Kukushkin 6-4, 6-2 in a match that lasted just 76 minutes.
Third-seeded Ernests Gulbis and sixth-seeded Tommy Robredo advanced to the third-round with their wins Wednesday.
