November 28, 2024

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

Wimby Flashbacks – the gentlemen

Milos Raonic and co-coaches John McEnroe and Carlos Moya, back in 2016

A rainy Tuesday at Wimbledon meant five Canadians were struggling to get on court for their first-round matches.

So, in the meantime, we poked through the Open Court archives for some probably never-before-seen video of many of them, from a few years back.

Almost forgotten, back in Milos Raonic’s run to the final in 2016, was that he had two high-profile mentors to help him get there: John McEnroe and Carlos Moya.

Some qualifying heartbreak, some practice time. It’s all here.

Here we go.

Milos – and Carlos and Mac

Back in 2016, there were plenty of practice sessions where Raonic co-coaches Carlos Moya and John McEnroe took to the court to play, for his edification.

Raonic ended up making the final. So clearly it was a good plan.

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Practice time for Pospisil

In 2017, ranked in the mid-70s, Vasek Pospisil had a terrific grass-court season.

He qualified and made the quarterfinals at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, qualified in Halle, and qualified and made the second round at Eastbourne before heading to Wimbledon.

Here he is practicing (with a fairly obscure fellow at the time hitting next to him, who turned out to be someone).

Unfortunately for Pospisil, he drew No. 8 seed Dominic Thiem in the first round of singles and lost in straight sets in the first round

Great moments for Shamasdin

Adil Shamasdin was a terrific doubles player who always had to play second fiddle to the legendary Daniel Nestor in that respect, in Canada.

But in 2016, he and Jonathan Marray got through Rojer and Tecau, and Brown and Struff, in the early rounds that were shortened to best-of-three sets because of the weather.

Then they defeated Cuevas and Granollers – 14-12 in the fifth set – before losing to Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi in the quarterfinals.

Here’s the end of that epic match over Cuevas and Granollers.

Final-round Q disappointment for Brayden Schnur

For the second straight year in 2019, Canadian Brayden Schnur lost in the final round of Wimbledon qualifying at Roehampton, in three quick sets to the Italian Salvatore Caruso.

Here’s what that looked like.

There was a silver lining, though. Schnur got into the main draw as a lucky loser, playing (and losing) to Marcos Baghdatis.

And he did beat another Canadian, Steven Diez, in the second round.

Qualies drama for Peter Polansky

Canadian Peter Polansky has had his share of heartbreak in Grand Slam qualifying (and also his share of good lucky in getting in as a lucky loser, as well).

But on this day in 2017, he was up two sets to one to the Italian Stefano Travaglia before going down in five.

Travaglia qualified for his first Grand Slam main draw with that win – moving on to play a young Andrey Rublev in the first round of the main draw. He lost to him 7-5 in the fifth set.

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