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BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTED BY SUNCORP

January 5, 2017

Milos Raonic

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

M. RAONIC/D. Schwartzman

6-3, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Things looked like a fairly straightforward day at the office. Did it feel that way for you?
MILOS RAONIC: No, it didn't, but it got to that point. At the beginning I really struggled that first service game, and had another close service game before I started to get in on his games.

Then I could feel I started imposing myself on him. He started making some mistakes, and I was able to create some things, as well.

I have to be glad with how I finished.

Q. Good to get out there? You have been here a few days? Day 5 before you played.
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah, it was good to get out there. Obviously I would have liked to have played earlier, but it's fun to be here. I always enjoy being here, and I had fun with it today. Hopefully I will continue to do so.

Q. Any flashbacks from the win over Federer here 12 months ago?
MILOS RAONIC: No. (Smiling.) I have played a lot of tennis since then.

Q. You could face Rafa in the next round. How do you feel about that?
MILOS RAONIC: It's exciting. I look forward to facing him, and obviously it's a great task, one of great opportunities.

I feel like I'm doing a lot of things well, and hopefully I can match up and play some good tennis.

Q. You said you want to come forward more in 2017. You were 12 for 22 approaches today. Can you speak to that?
MILOS RAONIC: Well, I probably should have approached 12 more times and I probably should have won a few more. (Smiling.)

No, I definitely want to -- I felt like, especially at the beginning, since obviously I didn't take care of my serve so well, I hesitated, but also, with him, you've got to understand that he's quite quick. So rarely do you get him sort of reaching for balls.

If he's able to get to the ball, it's normally with two hands. So he can come up with some good shots, and he was able to do that today, passing some incredible backhands down the line, a few I should have made or should have covered better, I got a little bit lazy on.

But, you know, I gotta put myself there to give myself an opportunity to get better at it.

Q. 12 aces in 9 service games, 75% first serve in play. When you serve like that, do you feel sometimes as if you're putting your opponent out of the match when you serve such high quality?
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah, obviously if I can take care of my service games -- the only, I had, I'd say, those two poor service games, first one of each set. If I could take care of my service games, it just makes the opponent's service game seem that much more daunting, that, you know, if they drop theirs, then I could keep them out of an opportunity to get back into that set.

So it helps me on both ends. It makes my life a little bit easier on my service games, but also makes it and increases the pressure on their service games, as well.

Q. Leading into a major, do you look at what other players are doing, this player's won, this player's lost, this player took it to the wall to win a match? Do you scout what the other players do?
MILOS RAONIC: I watch what they do. Because it's a new season, you're seeing what guys are trying to incorporate. I think the results are quite irrelevant to that.

I think it's more you try to see how you would sort of deal with those situations. The beauty here is that every night I have been trying to stay awake, there has been two channels of tennis to watch pretty much all evening. So it's nice to get to watch other top players play, other matches play, and really get some insight on how you think things are going to play out this year.

Q. We asked you the other day about Johnny Mack. What's the reality of getting to know Johnny Mack as opposed to knowing him as an exceptional tennis player when you were a younger person?
MILOS RAONIC: Well, what I know John as -- I obviously didn't see many of his matches. I saw a few of his matches. Not growing up, but over the last few years since the invention of YouTube and so forth.

Sort of that attitude stands out. The rebellion stands out quite a bit. But when you get to spend time with John, you see how insightful of a person he is. And I believe why I get along well with John, we might express it quite differently, but we think very much alike. I think that's why we get along quite well.

Q. Did you follow rebellious players yourself when you were younger, or did you...
MILOS RAONIC: No. Pete Sampras was my idol, so I don't know if you'd call him rebellious.

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