TORONTO — Milos Raonic smiled and shook his head, then he took a seat and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
“Disappointment is the right word,” the 25-year-old said, minutes after he was upset in front of the most boisterous crowd we’ve seen at the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
That’s it for Raonic. The main attraction of the men’s singles draw is done.
The 25-year-old from nearby Thornhill, Ont., lost in straight sets Friday night to Frenchman Gael Monfils, who took down the hometown favourite 6-4, 6-4 in a quarterfinal match that took just one hour and 12 minutes.
It’s the first time in three meetings this season that Monfils has beaten Raonic. And what a time and place to get that first win of 2016 over the Canadian.
“There was definitely moments where I could have been more aggressive and taken it to him,” Raonic said. “There were moments where I hesitated. There were moments where I rushed. I didn’t find that middle ground as I had against him the last few times we played. I think that’s the thing I was looking for the most.”
Despite the result, the crowd was into this one, and from the start. “Let’s go Milos chants” started in the warm-up, and fans only got louder from there.
During the match, umpire Carlos Bernardes had to say “Thank you” — he really didn’t mean it, he meant “shut up” — at least 10 times because fans were cheering at non-ideal moments, like seconds before Monfils was about to serve.
There were also some pretty unconventional tennis cheers, including:
“Bury him Milos!”
And “Mi-los” (clap, clap, clap) “Rao-nic!” (clap clap clap.)
At one point they booed the Frenchman for speaking to the umpire. It turned out the ump asked Monfils to jog up to check ball marks on the court he planned on challenging. The boos earned another “thank you” from the man in the high chair.
Raonic, too, was as vocal as we’ve seen him here, yelling “Why?!” after he fired a would-be winner long, and talking to himself late in the match after a few attempted winners went wide.
He started strong, with an ace right out of the gate, and lost just one point in his first three service games on a double fault.
But Monfils managed to break Raonic in the seventh game of the match when Raonic hit a shot wide. The crowd went quiet then, and the only sound was of Monfils, who jumped and pumped his fist and said “Yes!”
“Any energy, I take it,” Monfils said. “Even if it’s for me or not for me, I take it.”
Raonic pushed Monfils on the Frenchman’s next service game, and saw a few break points, but wasn’t able to capitalize. But it was Raonic’s own service games he was most disappointed with.
“Out of the eight points I lost in those two service games, I think five of them were my own forehand mistakes, quite poor mistakes,” he said. “Obviously there’s the other side of that, as well, but I will pay attention and do my best not to repeat that kind of slump again.”
Down love-30 in a service game in the second set, the crowd got right into it. Raonic responded with a 241 km/h serve — except it went long. Down love-40, he approached the net and had a great back-and-forth rally with Monfils, but it ended when Raonic misfired on a backhand volley.
That saw Monfils yell and pump his fist and go up 5-4. The 10th seed here, Monfils said the difference Friday against Raonic compared to their last couple meetings was that he was able to take advantage of opportunities.
“I think it was on his second serve he made a couple mistakes,” Monfils said. “And, you know, maybe before I was a bit too passive and could not get opportunities, but this time it was a bit different and I took them.”
He ended the game with a 189 km/h ace. After they shook hands, the remaining crowd gave Raonic a loud cheer as he walked off the court, waving.
“I’ll look back at this and give it the right amount of perspective and try to take it to the next process, next step forward, to be better next time,” Raonic said. “I think mistakes can happen. I think it’s when you let them happen numerous times, that’s the unfortunate part.”
As for Monfils, he’s on a 10-match winning streak and will face world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in Saturday’s semifinal. Asked why he’s been so solid of late, Monfils had a pretty good answer: “I guess because I’m solid.”
You can’t argue with that.
While he took care of the last Canadian standing in the singles draw, in good hometown news, the duo of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil are still going. They advanced to the semifinal Friday with a 6-3, 7-6 win over the Czech duo of Tomas Berdych (who earlier in the evening lost to Djokovic in their quarterfinal) and Radek Stepanek.
Nestor and Pospisil, who will represent Canada in Rio at the Olympics next month, will play their semifinal on Saturday on the main court.
The veteran of the two, Nestor, said it was “sad to see Milos lose tonight.” Then he added, grinning, “I think that’s sad for the fans, but hopefully we’re a good backup.”
Pospisil said despite the fact they’re the only Canadians left in the Rogers Cup, they aren’t feeling added pressure.
“We’re used to playing at home,” he said. “And now once you get used to it, you take the energy and take it more as a positive thing….So when the crowd is there and behind you, then it’s always a good thing and that’s what we’re going to try to take advantage of.”
Then Nestor jumped in, again with a smile. “Plus, now we get to play on centre and have a bigger crowd. Milos has been stealing our thunder the last couple of nights. Not enough people on Grandstand. It will be nice to have a bigger crowd and better support.”
And so, the main event of the Toronto draw is done, but Canada still has a couple horses in this race.