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Raonic flames out, losing to fired up Monfils at Rogers Cup

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Frenchman Gael Monfils kept his fire burning — and it led to an early flameout for Canadian Milos Raonic at his hometown tournament.

Monfils has long been regarded as uber-athletic and entertaining, but seemingly indifferent and often erratic. He has been excellent, inspired and sometimes unstoppable in recent weeks. He was that and then some on Friday night in their Rogers Cup quarterfinal at the Aviva Centre in Toronto, paving the way to a 6-4, 6-4 win over the top-ranked Canadian to secure his spot in Saturday’s semifinal with top seed and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia.

Raonic, from nearby Thornhill, is the current world No. 7 and was seeded fourth here. With several top players withdrawing prior to the event, the door was wide open.

Monfils, seeded 10th and coming off his biggest career win at the Citi Open in Washington last weekend, slammed that door shut.

“Disappointment is the right word,” Raonic said. “In tennis, unless you’re the guy winning the tournaments most of the weeks — which there is very few guys that are doing that — you are losing quite a bit. So it’s very important to make the most of those (opportunities), try to learn, try to be better from those situations. That’s my next objective.”

Raonic overcame trouble in the seventh game of the second set, weathering being down love-30 to hold and go up 4-3, but the Canadian could not recover from a love-40 jam in the ninth game of the decider, misfiring at the net to give Monfils a crucial break and allowing his opponent to serve out the match.

The Canuck had his fourth break-point opportunity in the eighth game, but could not convert, while earlier in that game the right-handed Monfils was unable to track down a ball with his right hand, so he returned it with his left. Raonic had plenty of time on the return, but smashed it into the net.

It was that kind of night, when small windows of opportunity were made available and both players capitalized, but the Frenchman did just a little more.

“I lost 12 points on my serve and eight of those were in two games that I played quite poorly. That’s what it came down to. I had a few looks on his and I didn’t make the most of that,” Raonic said. “Out of the eight points I lost in those two service games, I think five of them were my own forehand mistakes, quite poor mistakes, I’d say. But other than that, there’s good things to take away.”

It was Monfils’ ninth consecutive match win - and first in three tries versus Raonic this season - and while the 29-year-old said afterward he doesn’t believe he is playing the best tennis of his career, his form of late certainly suggests he is close.

“The reason? I guess because I’m solid,” said Monfils, who has carried a mysterious tone this week when asked about changes to his game and overall approach. “I guess I’m solid, as I say.”

Raonic reached the final of the Rogers Cup in 2013 in Montreal and while he won’t have the opportunity to get there in Toronto this week, the recent Wimbledon finalist provided ample evidence all week — and throughout Friday’s showdown — that he has plenty of tools in his tennis shed: A blazing serve (he has been the fastest off the service line all week, topping out at 243 km/h) a willingness to attack around the net, a terrific forehand and the kind of variety to his game that had been missing prior to this season.

For a brief instance earlier in the night, it looked as though Djokovic might have been in danger of an early exit from the tournament. Fifth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic had several glorious opportunities to score his first-ever hardcourt victory over Djokovic, but failed to seize the moment, allowing the world No. 1 to land in the semifinal with a 7-6 (5), 6-4 win that won’t go down as the 12-time Grand Slam winner’s greatest.

The Serb was serving for the opening set at 5-3 when he was given a time-violation warning and then proceeded to net a backhand to give the Czech an unlikely break.

Then, in the tiebreaker, Berdych built a 6-3 lead and it was his set to win until, two unforced errors later, it wasn’t.

Djokovic, who is chasing his fourth Rogers Cup title, has not lost to Berdych in 21 meetings on the hardcourt.

Later, Canadians Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil advanced to the semifinal round in doubles with a 6-3, 7-6 (6) win over Berdych and fellow Czech Radek Stepanek.

ishantz@postmedia.com

twitter.com/IanShantz

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