John Horn
Delray Beach, Florida
“It was a pretty poor level I put out there today”. That summed up Milos Raonic’s brief post match comments. Last years Delray Beach Open finalist played a very poor match for his standards falling 6-2, 6-4 to American Steve Johnson in the 2nd Round in just 73 minutes.
It was the first win in four career meetings for Johnson who played well and forced Raonic into a number of mistakes. The former World No. 3, who has won just two matches since July of last year, looked out of sorts from the onset getting broken in the third game of the match. Raonic made several groundstroke mistakes throughout the set, hitting the ball long on several occasions including set point. His few attempts to come to the net proved unsuccessful as well.
It was more of the same in the second with Johnson getting the lone break of the set in the opening game. A disgruntled Raonic smashed his racquet against the seat during the changeover, one of several on court outbursts from the Canadian. Playing on back to back days for the first time in months, he could only manage one break chance against Johnson’s serve.
Johnson hasn’t had the greatest season himself, winning just two of the seven matches he has played, However on Wednesday, he won 25 of 29 points on his first serve and 57 percent of the points in the match against Raonic.
Johnson moves into the quarter-finals of a tournament for the first time since Tokyo in October of last year. He will play Evgeny Donskoy in the final eight. Donskoy defeated Donald Young in straight sets.
One other American John Isner was also sent home. Despite 30 aces, and having three match points, the sixth seed fell in three tiebreak sets. Isner is also struggling in 2018 winning just two of the six matches he has played.
@Sportshorn
