Hometown hero Milos Raonic secured his spot in the third round of Rogers Cup presented by National Bank in just over an hour on Wednesday night. The Thornhill, Ont. resident dispatched Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei 6-3, 6-3 in front of a packed house at Toronto’s Aviva Centre.
The win sees Raonic reach the third round for the fourth time at the tournament, with his best finish coming when the 25-year-old Canadian reached the final in 2013. He fired off eight aces in the contest, and scored the match point against Lu with a 232 km/h rocket ace.
A win and a wave. Welcome home, Milos ??#Raonic def Lu 6️⃣3️⃣ 6️⃣3️⃣ #RogersCup #GetCloser pic.twitter.com/msauS88UqR
— Rogers Cup Toronto (@rogerscup) July 27, 2016
The No. 4 seed faces American qualifier Jared Donaldson in the upcoming round. Donaldson defeated Fabio Fognini of Italy en route to his meeting with the crowd favourite.
The last match of the day saw talk-of-the-tournament Denis Shapovalov face off against Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. Despite leading with an early break in the first set, the 17-year-old Canadian was eventually out-steadied by Dimitrov, who won a 6-4, 6-3 decision.
Shapovalov’s second round appearance at Rogers Cup will vault his ranking from 371 to well inside the world’s top 300.
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