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August 6, 2014
TORONTO, ONTARIO
M. RAONIC/J. Sock
4‑6, 7‑6, 7‑6
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. You had a big crowd there supporting you. Just wanted to find out how much of their energy you fed off to pull through.
MILOS RAONIC: It helped me out a lot. There was a lot of difficult moments facing a lot of‑‑ not a lot, but a few break points on second serve. And then I just sort of started getting even.
When it might have sort of been uncharacteristic of myself, I started trying to pump myself up, got the crowd into it and sort of helped with the flow of getting myself into the match.
Q. Do you feel happy with the support? All the Canadians was screaming for you.
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah, it's great. Now that there is Canadians doing well tournaments all around the world, there is small groups out all the time. But now to have this kind of big group support here and loud and constant, it's amazing.
Q. Jack said a few minutes ago he felt there were some inappropriate comments directed toward him. Did you hear anything like that on the court?
MILOS RAONIC: From?
Q. From the crowd.
MILOS RAONIC: If there was anything, trust me, I have listened to much worse playing in other countries (laughter).
Q. Is there a special pressure to playing here at home when the crowd has such high expectations?
MILOS RAONIC: No. Today had nothing to do with that. Today was just first match of a new tournament, and it's never going to be pretty. You've just gotta go and fight through, and I was able to do so.
Q. What did you think when you saw Genie Bouchard play last night and there were huge expectations of her in Montreal and she didn't have a good evening?
MILOS RAONIC: I just wanted her to sort of forget it as quickly as possible. Grand scheme of things, whatever may happen, obviously you want to play well, but people, she will realize people are not going to remember Montreal. They're going to remember at the end of this year Wimbledon, Paris, and Melbourne. Not Montreal.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about the struggle that you had in this match? What did you struggle with?
MILOS RAONIC: Just sort of struggled finding my grounding. At the end it's really no different from that match I played last week. Okay, Wimbledon was different, but it's no different from when I played him in Montreal, when I played him in Cincy last year.
Always played him early. The last three times I played him, he was always getting one match in before I was, so he was feeling more comfortable into the tournament, other than the Wimbledon time we both played one match before.
So it's a matter of that. I can't expect to play great tennis at the beginning. He's a great player, and he's going to make it tough on me.
Q. Where are you with the confidence level when it gets to a tiebreak? It just seems like you have no problems when it gets there.
MILOS RAONIC: There are problems (smiling), but it's good that it seems that way.
But, no, I feel good in those situations, especially if things are not going throughout the set the way I would have liked. I'm not converting opportunities or giving away too many opportunities. I know that if I can get it to a tiebreak, I can sort of tip things in my favor.
Q. You have met Jack so often lately. You two have gotten to know each other's games so well. Obviously you have won all those tiebreakers against him. Where is the confidence level? You know what to expect with him, especially when you get to a tiebreaker with him. How do you feel about that?
MILOS RAONIC: I feel good. I feel like there is a certain discomfort for him against me, but I'm sure he feels the exact same way. I know I sort of have the edge on sort of getting over that hump when it comes to those tighter moments.
I know no matter how bad things might be going, for us to get in that situation I can tip things in my favor.
Q. After a match like that, is it relief, is it happiness, joy, satisfaction? Like where are you when you win that first difficult match?
MILOS RAONIC: It's relief, because obviously playing well last week, you know you cannot play that well. But maybe you hope you can play a little bit better.
But it's a relief in that sense. It really is that way, I would say, for most matches throughout the year.
Q. Maybe especially so given it's a three set, given it's back‑to‑back tiebreakers?
MILOS RAONIC: Just all those things, all those things, all the difficulties, getting through that match, facing break points, two of my service games consecutively, doing a poor job in converting the chances I had. All those things sort of just maybe if it doesn't go your way you would have said, I wish I did this differently and this and this in these situations. So that, let's say, weight that might be on your shoulders, it's the relief of that sort of getting off.
Q. If this is tough like you play 85% of your best because you played your first match since Wimbledon, would you expect to play 90, 95% tomorrow?
MILOS RAONIC: I expect to play a little bit better tomorrow, but I don't know what that is.
Q. And Benneteau?
MILOS RAONIC: Played him three times, I think. I'm not sure. Probably you guys know more than I do.
I have been able to find the answers, so hopefully I can do that tomorrow. It's going to come down to serving well like I did today and keeping close to the baseline, more so than I did today.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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