MELBOURNE – Already up a set, Stan Wawrinka was just two points away from taking the second in his Australian Open match against Milos Raonic. Couldn’t do it.
About an hour later, 2014 champion Wawrinka was a single point from grabbing the third set. Denied again.
And another hour after that, Wawrinka was two points from seizing the fourth to force a fifth. Nope, not on this afternoon.
Wawrinka kept coming oh-so-close, and Raonic kept hanging in there and toughing out the most important moments along the way to a 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6), 7-6 (11), 7-6 (5) victory Thursday, putting the 16th-seeded Canadian into the third round at Melbourne Park for the eighth time in nine appearances.
“It feels like four hours passed by in about 15 minutes. ... The adrenaline takes over,’’ said Raonic, the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2016. “I was very fortunate to stay alive in that fourth set.’’
The match was interrupted for about a half-hour while the roof at Rod Laver Arena was shut because of rain at 4-all in the third set.
Raonic thought that helped him quite a bit.
“I do a little bit better indoors than outdoors,’’ he said, “so thank you for raining up there.’’
Raonic delivered 39 aces, part of an impressive ratio of 84 total winners to only 44 unforced errors.
This was a matchup probably better suited to the second week than the second round of a Grand Slam tournament, given both men’s credentials. But Wawrinka, a three-time major champion once ranked as high as No. 3, dropped out of the top 250 last season, when he had surgery on his left knee.