Raonic comes back from 2 sets down to beat Goffin, advance to Wimbledon quarters

LONDON – Milos Raonic rallied for the biggest comeback of his career, but first he had to stop playing “feel-good” tennis.

The sixth-seeded Canadian advanced to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon on Monday, coming back from two sets down to beat Belgian David Goffin 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Raonic recovered confidently after struggling early in the match and won after trailing by two sets for the first time in his career.

“I allowed him to play too much on his terms,” Raonic said of his bad start. “I was getting the balls in and playing the points and playing maybe better-looking tennis at the beginning, and I gave up on that and said ‘I’ve got to play this on my terms.’

“Maybe I made a few more unforced errors, but I was hitting through the court more and not allowing him to play the way he wanted to.”

Raonic went ahead in the match for the first time when picked up a key break in the fifth game of the fifth set to go up 3-2. He held serve the rest of the way and put the 11th-seeded Belgian away on his first match-point opportunity.

Goffin had trouble returning Raonic’s serve, and the Canadian clinched the match with a confident forehand.

Once again, Raonic’s dangerous serve was on display in the match that took three hours two minutes to complete. He fired 22 aces, giving him 101 through four rounds at the All England Club.

Still, Raonic expected to get more from his serve and was surprised to find Goffin using his speed to make unexpected returns.

“He moves well, he’s got quick feet,” Raonic said. “I thought, because he doesn’t have a long reach, I could get around him a bit more, but he was leaning the right way most of the time.

“I definitely expected a few more free points.”

It wasn’t a pretty win. Raonic finished with 44 unforced errors, though he said some of those occurred when he changed his approach mid-match.

“It’s ‘feel-good’ tennis. You’re out there, you’re hitting a lot of balls, you’re getting in these long rallies, you’re feeling the ball …and that’s the last thing I want,” he said “Not just for myself but for the other guy.

“It’s about taking the game away from the other guy. Even if I miss 10 balls in a row, as long as it’s not on my serve.”

Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., will next face 28th seed Sam Querrey of the United States, who downed France’s Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-4 Monday to reach his first Grand Slam quarter-final. Querrey’s run includes a third-round upset of top-seed Novak Djokovic.

“Today was not an easy match by any means for him, especially coming back after that huge upset,” Raonic said. “He stepped up today against a difficult opponent on grass.”

Raonic and Querrey have met three times, with the American holding a 2-1 edge. Querrey also advanced past Raonic in a walkover at the 2013 Miami Masters.

Raonic made the semifinals at Wimbedon in 2014 before losing to Roger Federer. The winner of the match between Raonic and Querry will face either third-seed Federer on ninth-seed Marin Cilic in the 2016 semifinals.

In men’s doubles third-round action, Toronto’s Adil Shamasdin teamed with Britain’s Jonathan Marray to defeat Marcel Granollers of Spain and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 6-3, 4-6,6-4, 3-6, 14-12.

Eighth seeds Vasek Pospisil of Vancouver and American Jack Sock won their second-round match 6-4, 6-4 over Australians Lleyton Hewitt and Jordan Thompson.

The French team of Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin defeated the ninth-seeded pair of Toronto’s Daniel Nestor and Britain’s Dominic Inglot 7-6 (0), 6-4.

In women’s doubles, Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain beat Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in a second-round match.

Dabrowski rebounded in mixed doubles, teaming with American Nicholas Monroe to win a second-round match against Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Hao-Ching Chan of Taiwan 7-5, 6-2.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version misspelled Sam Querrey’s last name.