St. Petersburg: It had been an year and over since the Canadian number 1 Milos Raonic won an ATP title in a turbulent season which ended at St. Petersburg, Russia where he beat Joao Sosua in three sets (6-3, 3-6, 6-3) to claim his 7th ATP World Tour title.
The World number 9 said “It’s such a great feeling to come to St. Petersburg and be able to win this event”
“It was a great experience overall with the event, the city and the people. The tournament is only going to get better. Word is going to spread about how much the players enjoyed it.” he added.
With this title in hand, Raonic has boosted his chances to ATP World Tour Finals London for which he is yet to qualify. Players like Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka have already qualified for London. Raonic has a chance to book one of the four left berths for The World Tour Finals London. Raonic debuted at The Tour Finals in 2014. He has a lot of ground to make up for a return to O2 in November (15-22 November).
He had some troubles this season when he was forced to withdraw from Roland Garrros 2015 to undergo a surgery for his right foot due to which he couldn’t perform beyond third round at Wimbledon 2015 (lose to Nick Kygrios) and USO 2015 (lose to Feliciano López).
The title has brought him a victory after August 2014 when he beat a fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil in the Citi Open Final in Washington. He lost the final of Brisbane to Roger Federer in January 2015 which also marked a thousand match wins for Federer.
The seventh seed Sousa said, ‘I think I played my best”
“Of course I feel sad that I couldn’t have the title here. I was really confident that I could beat him today but he played and served very well in the important moments. I just have to congratulate him for the match.”
Sousa lost in 3 ATP finals since the beginning of the season this year, having finished runner-up to Thomas Bellucci in Geneva and Dominic Thiem in Umag.