Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ontario is in the final eight of the Paris Masters for the third time in his career. On Thursday, Raonic defeated American qualifier Marcos Giron 7-6, 6-2 in the most famous all-indoor tennis tournament in the world.
The first set was pretty even. Then Raonic dominated Giron in the tiebreak by winning seven of the eight points. In the second set, it was extremely routine for Raonic as he broke Giron twice en route to the victory.
Once again, Raonic’s serve was the story. He had 17 aces compared to only two for Giron. Raonic is extremely comfortable on hard courts, but when you put him indoors and on a fast surface, he simply becomes dominant.
Raonic will now play Ugo Humbert of France in the quarterfinals. In the tournament to date, Humbert has beaten two-time grand slam semifinalist and the tournament’s second seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, 7-6, 6-7, 7-6, in the second round, and 2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic of Croatia 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in the third round.
This will be the first time Raonic has played Humbert. Raonic has already beaten a Frenchman in the 2020 Paris Masters 1000 tournament to date. On Wednesday in the second round, Raonic defeated Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-4, 6-4.
In 2014, Raonic reached the final of the Paris Masters, before losing 6-2, 6-3 to Novak Djokovic of Serbia. Djokovic is not in Paris this week, despite being the defending champion. Last year, he beat Denis Shapovalov of Toronto 6-3, 6-4 in the final.
En route to the final of the Paris Masters six years ago, Raonic beat Roger Federer of Switzerland 7-6, 7-5 in the quarterfinals. It was Raonic’s first ever career win over the 20-time Grand Slam champion. Then in 2016, Raonic beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France 6-2, 7-6 in the quarterfinals, but then had to pull out of his semifinal match against Andy Murray of Great Britain due to an injury.
