Milos Raonic is into the top 60 on the ATP Tour and one of our staff writers compares Raonic to the current top 10 in terms of when they reached the top 60.
Milos Raonic, the 20 year old Canadian, defeated Fernando Verdasco on Sunday and in doing so Raonic claimed his first ATP title. Verdasco complimented Raonic after the match as the Spaniard stated: "I think he can be top 20 very soon."
Raonic, who was born in late December of 1990, is in his 2nd month of his 21st year and as he is a young assassin on tour, now ranked 59th. He is an interesting player to look at in terms of how he compares to the current top 10 and when they first achieved a ranking in the top 60.
As you can see from the comparisons below, Raonic has made the top 60 faster than 3 current top 10 players did.
10. Jurgen Melzer
Born: May 22nd, 1981
July 9th, 2001 ranking: 309th (Raonic +250 ranking spots)
9. Fernando Verdasco
Born: November 15th, 1983
January 19th, 2004 ranking: 111th (Raonic +52 ranking spots)
8. Andy Roddick
Born: August 30th, 1982
October 7th, 2002 ranking: 11th (Raonic -48 ranking spots)
7. Tomas Berdych
Born: September 17th, 1985
October 31st, 2005 ranking: 50 (Raonic -9 ranking spots)
6. David Ferrer
Born: April 2nd, 1982
May 13th, 2002 ranking: 172nd (Raonic +113 ranking spots)
5. Andy Murray
Born: May 15th, 1987
July 9th, 2007 ranking: 13th (Raonic -46 ranking spots)
4. Robin Soderling
Born: August 14th, 1984
October 4th, 2004 ranking: 47th (Raonic -12 ranking spots)
3. Novak Djokovic
Born: May 22nd, 1987
July 9th, 2007 ranking: 3rd (Raonic -56 ranking spots)
2. Roger Federer
Born: August 8th, 1981
September 17th, 2001 ranking: 12th (Raonic -47 ranking spots)
1. Rafael Nadal
Born: June 3rd, 1986
July 17th, 2006 ranking: 2nd (Raonic -57 ranking spots)
In my opinion Grigor Dimitrov will prove to be the better player in the longer term but Raonic looks like a great prospect for a top 10 ranking. His ability to ace on both the hard court surface and presumably the grass court surface essentially takes the racket out of the hands of his returning opponents.
The clay court season is not far off and certainly there have been many strong servers in the past who have not been able to achieve much success on dirt and that part of the season could be where Raonic takes his lumps.
