Eleventh-seed Milos Raonic stepped up his game at the right time to beat Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 on Friday to secure a semifinal berth at the Montreal Masters 2013 tournament. Raonic is slated to meet countryman Vasek Pospisil in the semifinals. This will be their first meeting at the ATP Tour though both have competed several times during their junior years.
“It’s great, what it all means. What it represents for tennis in Canada. It’s great what it shows to little kids: that you can succeed as a Canadian in tennis,” Raonic said, referring to the upcoming all-Canadian clash at an ATP 1000 event.
Raonic said that Pospisil has beaten him many times during the junior years. “He won. He won most of them as a junior, if not all of them…Most of the tournaments came down to us. There was also another junior back then that was playing really well. Most of the events were between the three of us,” he said.
This is Raonic’s first ATP 1000 semifinal and will attempt to reach an ATP World Tour final for the eighth time. He has won four titles and finished runner-up three times.
