isportMilos Raonic has been defeated by Jarkko Nieminen of Finland in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters. Nieminen won the match by 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(3).
It was a great performance by the Finnish player. Not many people were backing him to win, but, he showed terrific composure and secured win over a player who is way higher in world rankings than him. Nieminen won this match in just less than 2 hours.
This was actually Nieminen’s second victory over Raonic. He had defeated Raonic in the quarter final round of the Thailand Open last year as well.
In the opening set, both the players began in a decent manner. There were no serve breaks in the first five games and Nieminen was ahead by 3-2 at the end of the 5th game.
Raonic dropped his serve in the 6th game and then, Nieminen held his serve in the next game to take a lead of 5-2.
A serve hold by Raonic in the 8th game brought down the lead to 5-3, but, that didn’t affect the outcome of the set. Nieminen served out the 9th game and grabbed the set by 6-3.
In the second set, things turned around completely. Nieminen suddenly started playing erratic shots and Raonic took advantage of that. The Canadian player got a couple of breakthroughs (in the 2nd and the 6th game) and won the set by 6-1 to come back into the match.
In the third set, none of the players got a breakthrough. Both of them held their entire serve and the scores were tied at 6-6. It was the tie breaker time.
It was important to start well in tie breaker and Nieminen did that. He got two mini breakthroughs at the start and took a lead of 5-2. He didn’t lose that lead and eventually won the tie breaker to finish off the match.
In the third round, Nieminen will face Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina.