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Canadian Milos Raonic rolls into third round at Wimbledon

LONDON — Milos Raonic’s big serve has powered the Canadian to another victory at Wimbledon.
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Canada’s Milos Raonic (Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Vincent Thian.)

LONDON — Milos Raonic’s big serve has powered the Canadian to another victory at Wimbledon.

The No. 13 seed advanced to the third round of the grass-court Grand Slam with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) victory over unseeded Australian John Millman.

Raonic had just four break-point opportunities in the match, winning one.

But Millman did next to nothing against Raonic’s serve, converting on one-of-two break-point chances. Raonic had 34 aces, compared to only three for Millman.

The 27-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., leads the ATP Tour in the past year with wins in 73.7 per cent of his tiebreaks — and Raonic continued that trend in his second-round victory.

A return to Wimbledon for the 2016 finalist seems to have given Raonic a boost. He lost in the first round of the Australian Open this year and missed the French Open with an injury, one of several health setbacks during the past few years.

Raonic will play the winner of a match between No. 17 Lucas Pouille of France and unseeded Austrian Dennis Novak in the third round.

Later Wednesday, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and partner Yifan Xu of China, the sixth seeds in the women’s doubles draw, open their tournament against American Alison Riske and Olga Savchuk of Ukraine.

Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., and No. 26 seed Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., are expected to play second-round matches on Thursday.

The Canadian Press