Milos Raonic reaches semifinals in Brisbane

Roger Federer raced past Dominic Thiem in his first career FedEx ATP Head2Head against the Austrian on Saturday at the Brisbane International 6-1, 6-4, setting up a rematch of the 2015 final against Canada’s Milos Raonic.

The 17-time major victor converted five of his six breakpoint chances and saved the only one he faced against Kamke, finding his touch quickly and dispelling pre-match rumors that he might be carrying an injury.

For the first time in his four meetings with the world number three, Dimitrov managed to win a set via a tiebreak to force the decider but could not pull off an upset.

Raonic plundered three opportunities to break the defending champion in the opening set, but Federer then made an unforced error on his forehand to allow his opponent to take a 5-4 lead.

But the 22-year-old dropped his serve in the seventh game and Federer, who was rock-solid on his own delivery throughout, went on to close out the match, sending down an ace on his second match point. Please note that comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language and will be removed accordingly.

“[It’s the] first tournament of the year, so I’m not that anxious”. A win over Federer in a re-match of last year’s Brisbane final would be quite the fillip for Raonic as he tries to start 2016 on a positive note, but it’s an extremely tall task – no pun intended.

But Raonic said if he wanted to compete to be the best player in the world, that was about playing well for 30 weeks.

It was Azarenka’s first title since she won in Cincinnati in August, 2013.

“I’m actually going to go out on centre court now and hit some more balls”.

Fourth-seeded Raonic knocked off unseeded Frenchman Lucas Pouille 6-4, 6-4 while Federer, the top seed, shook off the effects of a lingering flu bug to down Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-4. “We never really felt like we finished in 2015 – I played the Indian league and Sania played IPTL, so we still kept our routine”, Hingis said.

In Auckland, New Zealand, Julia Goerges reached her sixth WTA final and her first in four years when she beat qualifier Tamira Paszek 6-4, 6-2 in the ASB Classic semifinals.

“This year, it was a bit tougher (for me), I was a bit sick, but I’m still here in the final and I couldn’t be happier”.

“Hopefully, a better year this year than last”, said Raonic, who reached the quarterfinals at the last Australian Open but didn’t progress past the third round at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open after skipping the French Open with injury.

“I think I just sort of need matches like today to sort of reset myself”.

Although Nadal’s game has been much improved since certain points of last season, I still like the Serbian’s odds of capturing the Doha title in straight sets tomorrow.

She continues her preparations for the Australian Open at the Hobart International this week but was playing down her prospects of a return to winning ways in the immediate future.