Raonic plays through pain, reaches 4th round at French Open

Milos Raonic continued to crush early round opponents like protesters at Trump rallies Friday at the French Open.

Raonic beat 133rd ranked Andrej Martin in straight sets, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1, 6-3. The Canadian had a fight on his hands in the first set when Martin broke his service twice making him do the same just to force a tiebreaker.

Once Raonic won the first, he played cleaner tennis while Martin’s play fell, and he ran away with the second set 6-1.

Early in the third, Raonic took an injury time-out with his left hip appearing to be in significant pain. After treatment, he held on to win a tighter set 6-3.

Following his second round win over Adrian Mannarino, Raonic spoke about where he thought he could improve his game.

“I feel like throughout matches I’m not on top of things all the time,” said Raonic. “I’m having little let gos – not mental lapses, but I’m not on top of my game and dictating the whole time.”

“I have to stop letting myself get passive.”

He accomplished that goal Friday.

Raonic will face 55th-ranked Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the round of 16 Sunday, after Ramos-Vinolas upset the 23rd seed Jack Sock in five sets on Friday.

As we wrote before the tournament, Raonic received a dream draw with his first real test set to come in the quarter-final. There, life will get get tough, as he’ll likely face defending champion Stan Wawrinka, who’s been rolling through and finding his game during the first week at Roland Garros.

[youtube id=”3q1k9eO2vaU”]

Bouchard’s plight

Canada lost its last hope on the women’s side as Genie Bouchard lost to eight-seeded Timea Bacsinszky 4-6, 4-6 Thursday.

After losing the first set, Bouchard fell into a quick 0-5 hole in the second set. From there she mounted a comeback, knocking off four straight games to get to 4-5.

Unfortunately the comeback stopped there, as Bacsinszky held serve and won the match.