Until his plane took off for Europe more than a month ago, Milos Raonic was still hesitant to return to the game. With his baggage of courage, he resumed his life and his career in hand. He aspires today to no longer make the mistakes of the past.
Were it not for his many injuries, who knows what turn Raonic’s career might have taken? Former world No. 3 player and finalist at Wimbledon in 2016, the Canadian had just about all the elements to not only reach the top of his sport, but also settle there.
However, his body decided otherwise.
Due to repeated injuries, the Ontarian chose to lay down his racket in July 2021. Since then, he has been discreet. Not to say invisible. Nobody knew if he was going to step on a tennis court again.
However, he reappeared a few weeks ago, at the ‘s-Hertogenbosch tournament, before heading to Wimbledon, where he reached the second round.
It’s certainly a massive weight loss for an athlete of his caliber, but the six-foot-five right-hander had tried to shorten the needle’s path on the scale in the past, but in vain.
“I only ate one steak a day for almost four weeks at the start of the year until I lost enough weight to start eating normally again,” he says.
While this dietary restriction might horrify some nutrition specialists, it was the thing to do, he believes, to get back in the thick of the race.
“I knew I was losing muscle during this time, but gaining muscle mass was never a priority. […] Most of my injuries have been to the lower body, so the solution was to carry and drag less weight. »
Raonic had sworn to himself that he would return to the game if only two criteria were met: lose weight and go at it at his own pace, without ever being rushed.
Time has been beneficial and will have acted as a fountain of youth. “When you are away for a long time, you are able to restructure your habits. There is no pressure to come back as soon as possible and since there is no pressure, I was able to take a year to really sort everything out. »
Last September, the taste of taking back his Wilson came back to him. At that time, for him, a return to action at the Australian Open in January was not only possible, but ideal.
“With the offseason, everyone was going to start the season again at the same level. I also thought there would be less expectation of the clashes,” he explained.
However, the natural quickly returned to the gallop. He was injured in early November and contracted COVID-19 for the first time a few weeks later.
Knowing that his potential return to Australia was no longer holding, he and his team had the Indian Wells and Miami tournaments in March in their sights. However, they changed their minds. As Raonic wanted to spare his body, he wanted to skip the clay court season, just after the American streak.
“So it didn’t make sense to come back for Indian Wells and Miami, because I could have played just two games and then waited three months before playing a game again. It wouldn’t have made sense. The logic was to aim for Wimbledon and then Toronto. »
What he did. Not without hesitation.
Raonic has been granted a pass by Tennis Canada for the Toronto component of the National Bank Open, which will take place the second week of August.
The Ontarian will thus be able to surf on the fact of playing in front of his family with the feeling of accomplishment even before having set foot in the Queen City.
“I’m extremely proud of myself,” he says, pressing and stretching the adverb.
“I wanted to play at a high level when I came back and that’s what happened, even though I got injured. But I knew that if my body responded positively, my tennis was going to be there. In fact, I had only one problem to solve. But I knew that if I played injured, it wouldn’t do me justice. »
Here is the great Milos Raonic again, who will land in Toronto without really having any specific expectations, because “it’s still far too early”.
Except that if he came back, it was also to win. Toronto will thus serve as a test for the future. “I know I can play tennis well on Monday and Tuesday. But can I do it also on Thursday and Friday? There it is, the sinews of war. »
That’s why every tournament is a battle, but the goal is even bigger. Like a war against his past, the new Milos Raonic intends to attack the future to have no regrets.
