Milos Raonic is seeded fourth at the Rogers Cup tournament due to withdrawals from three of the top five men’s players.John Walton/Reuters
Less than a month after becoming the first Canadian man to appear in a Grand Slam singles final, Milos Raonic is in a good position to make more history at next week's Rogers Cup.
World No. 5 Stan Wawrinka thinks so, anyway.
Raonic, of Thornhill, Ont., is seeded fourth at the Rogers Cup tournament due to withdrawals from three of the top five men's players. Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Roger Federer all withdrew from the event over the past week.
A win at the Masters 1,000 event would make the 25-year-old the first Canadian singles champion on home soil since 1958, when Robert Bedard beat American Whitney Reed in the then-named Canadian Championship.
"If you look, Milos is getting closer and closer," Wawrinka, the tournament's second-seed, said after the official draw was revealed Friday at Rogers Centre. "He just played the final at Wimbledon, I think he's trying everything to improve. He's giving himself a chance to beat them and hopefully maybe win a Grand Slam soon.
"It's going to be interesting to see how they (opponents) are going to play because Milos has improved a lot. He's a really dangerous player."
Raonic, who's coming off a loss to Murray at the Wimbledon final, came close to winning the Rogers Cup in 2013, when Nadal beat him in the championship match.
Raonic could meet World No. 1 Novak Djokovic – the only seed higher than he is in his half of the draw – no earlier or no later than the semifinals.
The 25-year-old Raonic may have to get through two other Canadians on his way to the semis, though. Frank Dancevic, of Niagara Falls, Ont., and Vancouver's Vasek Pospisil are also in Raonic's quarter of the draw.
Dancevic is slated to play American Sam Querrey in the first round while Pospisil will face Jeremy Chardy of France. Querrey made headlines earlier this month at Wimbledon when he upset Djokovic in the third round.
On the other side of the bracket, Steven Diez of Toronto will play Kyle Edmund of Britain and 17-year-old Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., plays Australian Nick Kyrgios.
Shapovalov is making his Rogers Cup debut after winning the Wimbledon boys' title.