Milos Raonic delivered one of his best serving performances of the year on Tuesday to get his indoor season back on track at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris. The Canadian hit 17 aces and won 98 per cent of his first-serve points (41/42) to beat Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta 7-6(5), 6-4.
The 25 year old didn't face a break point in the one-hour, 14-minute match and took advantage of the only one he saw against Carreno Busta, breaking for 3-2 lead in the second set. The match was also played to Raonic's liking – quickly. About 86 per cent of the points ended before five shots had been hit. The World No. 5 will try to keep the same pace when he meets No. 16 seed Pablo Cuevas or Italian No. 1 Paolo Lorenzi in the third round.
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Raonic, who's already qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, finished as runner-up in Paris in 2014, beating Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych before falling to Novak Djokovic in the final. The Canadian is looking to get into top form this week before the year-end championships, to be held 13-20 November at The O2 in London. The top eight players at the end of this week will qualify for the season finale.
“I need to go flat out because I've struggled, I think, now for the better part of a couple months,” Raonic said. “There is no working your way into it come two weeks. You got to play against the top players right away from the beginning. It's about really putting in those gritty moments here to lead into that.”
Raonic bowed out in the second round of the US Open and lost his opener in St. Petersburg in September. He reached the semi-finals in Beijing but couldn't replicate that success in Shanghai, where he lost in the third round, or at the Swiss Indoors Basel last week, where he fell in his opener to Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis.
“I haven't been mentally at my best,” Raonic said. “That is the specific objective this week.”
Buoyed by the Paris crowd, Frenchman Richard Gasquet dismissed American Steve Johnson 6-4, 7-6(11) after nearly two hours to move into the third round. Gasquet erased six set points during the second-set tie-break to advance in straight sets. The 30 year old will next meet American Jack Sock or Dominic Thiem.
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov also advanced when Marcos Baghdatis retired after losing the first set 6-3.
