Raonic serves 15 aces to beat Sela in Chennai Open

Chennai: Big-serving Milos Raonic of Canada did not dish out his best tennis today, but still he managed to book his place in the semifinals of the Aircel Chennai Open by defeating Israel’s Dudi Sela in straight sets here. Fourth seed Raonic, the recipient of ATP Newcomer Award for 2011, took 90 minutes to get the better of world ranked 83rd, Sela 7-6 (4) 6-3 in the quarterfinal of the USD 450,000 event. Raonic, who jumped 131 places to a career-high 25 last year, will now face the winner of the quarterfinal match between second seed Nicolas Almagro of Spain and Japanese qualifier Yuichi Sugita to be played later tonight. [caption id=“attachment_174880” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Known for his serving ability, Raonic won the match even though he was not at his best. Reuters”]  [/caption] Against Sela, the young Canadian was not at his usual best. Even though Raonic’s strong point, his service was not up to the mark today, it was enough for him to get past his Israeli opponent. As a matter of fact, Sela was serving better than Raonic in both the sets but in the end the Canadian’s ability to come up with aces on crucial points made the difference. In all, Raonic fired 15 aces in the match. The first set was a hard-fought affair as Sela matched Raonic stroke-for-stroke, but the Israeli failed to capitalise on a break point cum set point at 6-all, which brought the tie-breaker into action. In the tie-breaker it was all Raonic as riding on his booming serve, the Canadian first took a 4-0 lead and then closed out the set at 7-4. In the second, Raonic had some anxious moments in the ninth game when Sela got to break points but he failed on both occasion. The 21-year-old Raonic then broke Sela in the sixth game of the second set to go up 5-2 with a thundering ace. Raonic, who made it to the fourth round of the Australian Open last year, drew curtains to the encounter with two more aces in the final game. In the other quarter-final, second seed and world number ten Nicholas Almagro quelled the challenge of fighting Japanese qualifier Yuichi Sugita 4-6, 7-6 (8), 6-4 in a marathon 163-minute duel to enter the semifinals. Alamgro will play Milos Raonic in the semifinal tomorrow. The other semi final will be between qualifier Go Soeda (Japan)and the winner of top seed and world number nine Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia and wild card entrant David Goffin of Belgium. Once he got himself into the match, there was no stopping of Alamgro. On the other hand, Sugita showed lapse in concentration several times. Almagro found his moorings late in the second set but Sugita was equal to the task. Though he trailed 2-5, Yugita came back into the match with a break and then Alamgro found the going hard as the Japanese raised his game every time when he was down. Sugita saved two match points and enjoyed a break point too but failed to put across a forehand. Again, nippy Sugita held the upper hand by making Alamgro run end to end and then only to be stranded watching Sugita coming up with a forehand cross court winner to his right. Almagro failed with his third match point as Sugita took the game to yet another deuce with an unbelievable high volley after Alamgro’s backhand return went above his head. However, Almagro finally had a sigh of relief when Sugita failed to put across a volley. PTI