Milos Raonic upsets Roger Federer in Brisbane International final

Raonic got his second career win over the Swiss great on Sunday and avenged his 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 4-6 loss to Federer in the 2015 Brisbane final.

Roger Federer of Switzerland plays a shot in the men’s final match against Milos Raonic of Canada during the Brisbane International tennis tournament in Brisbane, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016.

Raonic took a medical time-out at 2-1 in the second set to have treatment on his right leg. When he returned, he served four double faults to give Federer his first break point of the match. The former world number one conceded only two points on serve in the first set and put enormous pressure on Dimitrov, who cracked when serving at 4-5 to hand Federer the opener in 35 minutes.

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.

Azarenka, who was limited to 23 tournaments across the last two seasons due to foot and leg injuries, was broken once in each set but converted seven of her 11 breakpoint chances against Vinci, who ended Serena Williams’ bid for a true Grand Slam in the U.S. Open semifinals. But Federer responded to get the set back on serve and send it into a tiebreaker. “I had better moments for sure, but today when it mattered I couldn’t rely on it very much”.

The win came nearly 12 months to the day after Nishikori thumped Tomic 6-0, 6-4 at the same stage of last year’s Brisbane tournament, and nearly certainly assures Tomic a top 16 seeding for the Australian Open. I felt that other than maybe one service game where I double faulted three times, I was staying quite a bit ahead on my serve and always close on his, except for one that I lost at love.

Federer prevailed 6-4, 6-7 (2-7), 6-4 over Raonic in last year’s decider. It signifies within the team how concrete and good the work we’re doing is.

That said, I think it was probably his backhand that was most impressive last night, pulling out a few remarkable down-the-line winners with it.

At Doha, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will meet for the 47th time and play their 24th final against each other after both won their Qatar Open semifinals on Friday.

Federer fell to 88-48 in tour finals after reaching a third consecutive Brisbane final, while Raonic improved to 8-8.

“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”.

Regardless of what will happen, I’m sure we will see some good matches as the ATP season is underway and heading for the Australian Open.

“In practice it’s been great – I have been hitting the ball well”.