Raonic Survives Edmund Challenge

Top seed Milos Raonic weathered a stern test from eighth seed Kyle Edmund on Friday at the Delray Beach Open to advance into the final four 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Edmund showed no fear in the opening set, grabbing the lone break at 3-3 and later holding to love at 5-4 to clinch the early lead. But Raonic responded strongly, winning the final three games of the second set to level the match and then immediately breaking Edmund to start the deciding set. The Canadian held his slight advantage the rest of the way, comfortably closing out the match on serve to advance in one hour and 39 minutes.

“I was a little bit slow off the block, got a little down on myself after that and wasn’t necessarily focusing on the right things. I was glad to be able to get out of that midway through the second set,” said Raonic. “But Kyle has very good potential. He takes it to you and has a forehand that’s very hard to read. He’s constantly improving, so things look bright for him.”

Standing between Raonic and Sunday’s final is the winner between seventh seed Juan Martin del Potro and fourth seed and defending champion Sam Querrey. Raonic is even in his FedEx ATP Head2Head with Querrey at 2-2 and has won their past two matches. He’s also even with del Potro in their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry at 1-1, but they haven’t played in four years.

“I feel like I’m getting better each match,” said Raonic. “With this constant improvement, I’m feeling positive and like I have a good shot to win the matches ahead of me.”

Third seed Jack Sock continued his quest for his second ATP World Tour title this season by defeating fifth seed and fellow American Steve Johnson, 6-4, 7-6(3). Sock survived a wild first set highlighted by five breaks of serve. Both players held throughout the second set, but Sock raced to a 6/2 lead in the tie-break before wrapping up the contest on his third match point.

Sock improves his FedEx ATP Head2Head against Johnson to 4-1, including a win last month in the Auckland semi-finals.

“The first set was obviously different from our usual matches when it comes down to a break here or there, but I was glad to come out on top of it,” said Sock. “I might come over a few more backhands than him, but we’re both trying to do the same thing on court and that’s why our matches are always so close.”

He now faces another American in Donald Young, who advanced via walkover on Thursday when Steve Darcis withdrew due to personal reasons. Sock leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 2-0

“Anytime you get wins against a guy, that always helps,” said Sock.” But everyone keeps improving and tweaking things. He may come out with a completely different game plan from our past matches, but I know what works well for me and I’ll have to just go and do that.”

DOUBLES

Yen-Hsun Lu and Leander Paes caused an upset in the doubles draw by scoring a quarter-final win over top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan 7-6(4), 2-6, 10-7. They’ll now play third seeds Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi for a place in the final.