It came down to who could hold their serve and their nerve in the tie-breaks, and in the end newbie Milos Raonic was more poised than the veteran Fernando Verdasco and defeated him in straight sets 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5) to win his first ATP title. Match point was a bit anti-climactic, due to an overzealous fan yelling "YEAH" (see video here) when Milos was serving, perhaps breaking Fer's concentration and then he subsequently netted the return. There was apparently a "finger wag" from Fer to the crowd and a whole lot of cursing, but when it came to the trophy presentation, Verdasco held it together and was very complementary of Milos. When discussing the fan incident in his post-match presser, Fer said "If they don't know the rules in tennis, they can go see soccer." But finally calmed down by the end and jokingly said this about his strategy for his upcoming match against Milos on Wed, "Pray a lot that Milos will make a lot of double faults."
I'm not going to go on and on and on about the arrival of Milos, (he IS the Real Deal, and if you want to read it you can find it here and here), but I will say that I am excited about Memphis next week, because these two meet again in the first round, and you know what they say about payback........
And that's all she wrote from the SAP Open.
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 2:39PM 
