Canada's Milos Raonic celebrates his 6-3, 6-4 win over Serbia's Viktor Troicki during the Rogers Cup in Toronto on Tuesday August 8, 2012.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Outside the Rexall Centre, home of the 2012 Rogers Cup, there is an outsized mural featuring the main attraction of this year's tournament.
RAONIC! it screams, and just in case you missed the point, all you need to do is wander inside to the Grandstand Court and see who it happens to be named after.
Milos Raonic. Twenty-one years old. The great Canadian tennis hope, the youngest of the four Canadians in the men's draw and the only one still alive on Tuesday night, after he made his much anticipated tournament debut against Serbia's Viktor Troicki.
Raonic, who'd received a first-round bye as the 16th seed, dispatched Troicki in a quick and efficient manner. In a match that lasted just over an hour, Raonic converted his only two service break opportunities and won in straight sets 6-3, 6-4. Raonic was never challenged on his own service, which had its usual pop and produced seven aces.
It was his first ever singles win in a Rogers Cup competition and he made a reference to that post-match – that he has come a long way in the two years since he last played a singles match here on his de facto home court.
Raonic had the advantage of a fiercely partisan crowd, many of them wielding "Go Milos" foam fingers, plus a greater comfort level with the surface. Raonic's record on hard courts this year was a scintillating 17-3 going into the match (compared with just 8-7 for Troicki) and he said the switch from grass was, if anything, a relief for someone like him, who was weaned on the surface.
Troicki is part of a strong Serbian presence on the men's tour, which also includes Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic, two players currently ranked in the top 10, ATP rankings are updated weekly, so Raonic went into the match at No. 24, Troicki at 33, meaning there was not an epic gap between the two players statistically.
But on the court, it was a different story – and if Raonic felt any pressure from the surroundings, it didn't show up in his game. His service return was excellent and for a big man, who still occasionally moves awkwardly going forward on the court, he moved his feet pretty well.
When Raonic misses, he can still miss big, but he had Troicki off balance all night. Eventually, the 26-year-old Serb's body language betrayed what a lot of tour players are feeling – that when Raonic is on, the heavy ball that he hits is just too hot to touch.
"I'm proud with the way I competed and the way I played," said Raonic, afterward. "I did a lot of important things well, but there were some mistakes and room for improvement in the next round."
In all probability, the next round will feature a third-round meeting with No. 2 seed Andy Murray, the newly crowned men's Olympic champion, who plays qualifier Flavio Cipolla from Italy in his first match of the tournament Wednesday.
Murray's form will be hard to predict, coming off that emotional win in the Olympics, and Raonic will be buoyed by the fact that he is 1-0 lifetime against Murray with a win on clay earlier this year in Barcelona. (the two were also scheduled to play in Miami, but Murray got a walkover because Raonic sprained an ankle in a warm-up before a doubles match).
So it will be an interesting clash if it comes to pass – Raonic's big booming serve against Murray's athleticism and strong return game. Raonic was asked if he would be satisfied with anything less than a victory in this tournament and the answer was succinct and without pause:
"No," he answered. "I won't get satisfied until I'm achieving a lot. I expect a lot from myself and I'm going to push myself to achieve that. When I get satisfied, I think my career is going to be in trouble."
Raonic is just 21, the only male player born in the 1990s to win on the main tour, so the reasons for optimism, long-term, are obvious. But there is also an opportunity in the here-and-now. With no Roger Federer and no Rafael Nadal in the draw and both Murray and Djokovic potentially dealing with the effects of an Olympic hangover, there aren't many players in the draw that Raonic can't beat.
Raonic gets the day off from singles Wednesday, though you'd have to think there'll be a crowd gathering on smallish Court 1, when he and Troicki team up to play Juan Martin Del Potro and Radek Stepanek in a doubles match.
But that's just a diversion, a chance to get ready for the third round. Even in the short time that Raonic has been on the tour, confidence has never been much of an issue for him. In a year when the field is unusually thin at the top; in a place where his comfort level is high; and a time when his game seems to be spot on, the possibilities for a Raonic breakthrough seem exceedingly good at the moment.
TUESDAY'S RESULTS
At Rexall Centre
Toronto
Purse: $3.2-million (Masters 1000)
Surface: Hard-Outdoor
Singles
First Round
Mikhail Kukushkin, Kazakhstan, def. Frank Dancevic, Canada, 6-3, 7-5.
Sam Querrey, United States, def. Jurgen Melzer, Austria, 6-3, 6-2.
Marcel Granollers, Spain, def. Sergiy Stakhovsky, Ukraine, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
Mikhail Youzhny, Russia, def. Kevin Anderson, South Africa, 6-1, 7-6 (3).
Radek Stepanek, Czech Republic, def. Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ukraine, 6-3, 6-1.
Fabio Fognini, Italy, def. Yen-hsun Lu, Taiwan, 7-6 (7), 5-7, 7-6 (5).
Tommy Haas, Germany, def. David Nalbandian, Argentina, 6-2, 6-7 (11), 6-3.
Julien Benneteau, France, def. Wayne Odesnik, United States, 6-4, 6-4.
Second Round
Mardy Fish (11), United States, def. Matthew Ebden, Austria, 6-2, 6-0.
Juan Monaco (7), Argentina, def. Vasek Pospisil, Canada, 7-5, 6-4.
Milos Raonic (16), Canada, def. Vikto John Isner (8), United States, def. Pablo Andujar, Spain, 7-6 (5), 7-5.
Doubles
First Round
Jeremy Chardy and Gilles Simon, France, def. Philip Bester and Adil Shamasdin, Canada, 6-4, 4-6, 13-11 tiebreak.
Paul Hanley, Austria, vs. Nenad Zimonjic, Serbia, def. Carlos Berlocq, Argentina, and Kei Nishikori, Japan, 6-3, 7-5.