bet365 live streaming Raonic vs Verdasco (credit: Bet365)
Milos Raonic and Fernando Verdasco - finalists at the 2011 ATP San Jose.
Milos Raonic, the 20 year old Canadian, made some noise earlier this year as he made the 4th round of the 2011 Australian Open and on Sunday he contested the final at the SAP Open in San Jose, California.
Raonic faced veteran Fernando Verdasco in the final as the Spaniard looked to repeat as champion. Verdasco looked as though he would do just that at some points in the match, especially during the first set tiebreaker where he took a 6-2 lead over his Canadian opponent. However Raonic rallied back to win that tiebreaker 8-6 and then he held serve throughout the second set before winning another tiebreaker 7-5.
Unfortunately, the match did not end without controversy. After Raonic served at 6-5 someone from the crowd yelled, quite inappropriately, as Verdasco looked to return and it appeared to effect the Spaniard as he mis-hit the ball quite badly. Crowd noises do not lead to replayed points however and Raonic was awarded the point and the title in what was a little bit of legitimate bad luck for Verdasco.
Raonic had no ranking points to protect for Monday's rankings and as a result the 250 ranking points he picks up with the ATP San Jose title are all a net gain. According to our calculations Raonic should be ranked about 59th or so (ranking not official) with February 14th's rankings, a career high for the Canadian.
The title for Raonic is the first of what looks like it will be a promising career with prospects for the top 10. Furthermore, the title ends a title drought for Canadian tennis as no Canadian player had won a men's title since Greg Rusedski in 1995, a player who later self-identified as English.
