Flashback: Milos Raonic at Wimbledon, 2019 (vid)

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Milos Raonic is back at Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, when he reached the fourth round and lost a tough one to Guido Pella – 8-6 in the fifth set.

In fact, since 2014, Raonic failed to make the second week at the All-England Club only once, when he lost in the third round to Nick Kyrgios in 2015.

But it’s been four years, and a lot of water under the bridge.

Here he is talking to Open Court after beating fellow big server Reilly Opelka in the third round.

He looks ahead – and also brings the insight on how the Canadian tennis scene looked in 2019.

The biggest thing missing with Raonic’s absence from the circuit the last two years is his ability to be insightful on just about any topic. Even the dumb and/or sycophantic questions, he handles deftly. He’s just a guy who actually thinks about his answers before he speaks, gives some thought to the subject rather than just spout clichés or do whatever is most expedient to get done with press quickly.

That 2019 Wimbledon was a great cross-generational moment – with Raonic and Pospisil, and with Félix Auger-Alassime and Denis Shapovalov coming up.

Life has gotten complicated since then.

And here are a couple of bonus videos.

Auger-Aliassime and Raonic practicing at the D.C. Open later that year.

And Raonic hitting with Roger Federer, early during the 2016 edition of Wimbledon. They ended up meeting in the semifinals, with Raonic prevailing in five before losing to Novak Djokovic in the final.