After playing two great matches and winning, Milos Raonic's Canadian Open run is over as he was beaten by Mackenzie McDonald.
Many had high hopes that Raonic could possibly beat McDonald because, in reality, it was a very winnable match for him. The American is a solid player but certainly not on the level as Frances Tiafoe whom Raonic defeated in a controversy-ridden round one match.
The Canadian followed that win up with another solid win over a player who, admittedly wasn't expected to beat to Canadian. So with all of that, some expected him to overcome McDonald however he himself was playing really well at the event so far.
He followed up those great performances with another one against Raonic who gave up his serve early in the match and that was the problem. He needed to keep the match close and put McDonald under a lot of pressure but an early break had the opposite effect.
Lifted by the early break, McDonald continued playing well and even a lengthy rain delay didn't interfere with that. He won the opening set 6-3 breaking Raonic twice behind only 4 winners. Raonic had two break chances but didn't use either of them.
He played very aggressively and that wasn't a huge surprise but it wasn't as clean as the previous two matches. The nifty American absorbed his power well but the crucial thing for him was that Raonic simply didn't serve as well as he did in previous days.
You only need to look at his serving stats to see that. While that might not have been a problem a decade ago, this Raonic needs his serve to keep himself in contention and that simply didn't happen. The final score was 6-3 6-3 for McDonald who got it done behind 4 aces and 10 winners.
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