SIMMONS: Milos Raonic, Canada’s unlikely tennis king, calls it a day

Before there was Felix and Denis, before there was Bianca and Leylah — tennis players we have come to know by their first names only — there was the big serving giant, Milos Raonic.

He put Canadian tennis on the world map when there was nothing on any map called Canadian tennis. Oh, there was Daniel Nestor and sundry other doubles partners over the years, but no one like Raonic.

No one who could walk on a tennis court and frighten the best in the world.

Raonic officially announced his retirement from tennis on Sunday night, walking away with a personal scrapbook in his mind of all the magnificent career moments.

The three wins over Roger Federer, one of them in the semifinals at Wimbledon. The three wins over Andy Murray, just unfortunately not at Wimbledon, where Raonic played his only Grand Slam final. And he has two wins over Rafael Nadal, part of that three-man debate over the greatest player ever.

Imagine that, a kid from the neighbourhood — my neighbourhood, anyhow — with the tennis courts just a blocks from his Thornhill home, making it big. A kid from the neighbourhood owning wins over Federer and Nadal — two of the three greatest players ever — and what stories to pass on to children and grandchildren and anyone else fascinated with this come-from-nowhere story.

The world wasn’t waiting for Milos Raonic to arrive. He wasn’t like Andrew Wiggins, living just a few blocks west from Raonic. Wiggins was being touted from the time he became a teenager. He was going to be something. Raonic was just a big unknown in those days.

He was large for a tennis player, wide in the shoulders, a touch awkward with his on-court foot work. But he had this gift — part gift and part of his own creation — the hardest serve to return in tennis.

That was his knockout punch. He didn’t throw fancy jabs or uppercuts or impressed you with his dancing in the ring, the way Muhammad Ali could dance. But that serve — it could and did bring the best of all time to their knees.

He was Al MacInnis with a tennis racket. He was Nolan Ryan without a mound. Just don’t get in the way of that serve.

Except Novak Djokovic could handle it. The way he has handled just about anything on the court in his magnificent career. Raonic was not made for Djokovic. The two met 12 times in ATP tournaments with Djokovic going 12-0 against Raonic.

Third in the world

You can’t beat everyone with mostly a serve and hope for tiebreaker sets. But Raonic worked his way up in the rankings. He was no flash in the pan. It didn’t happen quickly for him, it happened methodically.

He turned professional in 2008 at the age of 18 and, by the time he was 21, he started to advance in the very deep tennis world. He moved from 156 in the world to No. 37 in 2011. That was the highest any Canadian ever had been.

Thirty seven in the world. And then a year later, all the way to No. 13. In his sixth year as a pro, Raonic moved into the Top 10 and, eventually, in November of 2016, against all odds and probabilities, he found himself as No. 3 in the world.

It sounded impossible back then and sounds seemingly impossible right now. That’s really the Milos Raonic story isn’t it? His impossible dream.

He was a slugger with a knockout punch: When the bout turned to more finesse, more speed, more touch, that’s when Raonic tended to struggle.

The older he got, the more his body failed him. That happens to so many tennis players. They lose their shoulders, their elbows, their knees, their hips, their feet.

Pitchers throw 100 pitches and get pulled from games. In tennis, you serve 100 times today and 100 tomorrow and, if you keep winning, 100 the next day.

And, if you were Raonic and had the one weapon, your fastball — the serve no one wanted to face — you always had a chance because of it. Until time ran out. His official career earnings from the ATP: $20.8 million.

How Raonic changed Canadian tennis

Canadian tennis has changed so much since Raonic arrived on the scene. There was no real big shot before him. There was no road to follow.

Nestor made his way to 38th in the world. Before that, Andrew Snajder — now there’s a name from the past — was 46th.

But since King Milos’ arrival, the floodgates opened.

Bianca Andreescu won a U.S. Open and Leylah Fernandez played for one.

For a moment in time, Andreescu got all the way to fourth in the world. The only time you see her now on television is in commercials.

The now-retired Genie Bouchard made it to No. 4, also for a brief moment in time, and she played in a Grand Slam final.

The thought that three different women could be prominent in Grand Slam events was once illogical.

On the men’s side there is Felix Auger-Aliassime, the hugely talented Montrealer, who has been as high as fifth in the world. There is Denis Shapovalov, the talented and temperamental hope: He has been as high as 10th in the world.

And there’s more just emerging.

Last year, Vicky Mboko, out of nowhere, won the Canadian Open. Last year, little known Gabriel Diallo, started the year in the 100s and ended it at No. 41.

They are the unofficial children of Raonic’s kingdom, the metaphorical father of a Canadian tennis movement. Raonic is 35 years old now, that’s around the age most athletes, if they can last that long, say goodbye. The last world rating had him at 237. Raonic didn’t play a match in 2025 or after the Olympics in 2024.

Career-wise, he played in 567 matches, won 383 of them. He has a 92-37 record in Major tournaments.

The kid from the neighbourhood wound up just fine.

ssimmons@postmedia.com