Australian Open 2017 draw analysis: Djokovic and Murray on yet another collision course

Milos Raonic

Form, fitness and finals – Milos Raonic has found them all in the 2016 season, competing deep into Tour level tournaments, slams and maintaing a steady level of gameplay and consistency.

From his draw, Raonic looks as though he should easily be able to progress to the semi-finals. He will start off facing the athletic German Dustin Brown, followed by Frenchmen Gilles Muller and Gilles Simon, after which he is projected to play Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in the pre-quarter-finals.

Raonic’s quarter-final will, in that case, be against the mercurial Frenchman Gael Monfils, who has been in excellent nick as far as his game is concerned but has found no consistency in his work. Monfils is also infamous for being injury-prone, and last year also appeared to throw his US Open match against Novak Djokovic. Given Monfils’ unpredictable nature, Raonic will likely make easy work of the quarter-final.

In that event, he will set up a semi-final clash with defending champion Novak Djokovic.The Canadian has never beaten the Serb in the eight matches the two have played against each other, but at their most recent meeting, at the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London, Raonic seriously troubled Djokovic, who had then been struggling wtih form, to a two-set tiebreak match that largely teetered on the brink.

The last time the pair met at the Grand Slam level was at the 2015 Australian Open, with Djokovic winning their quarter-final showdown in straight sets, although the first of those went to tiebreak.

In the improbable event that Raonic wins that, he will set up a repeat of Wimbledon 2016 – a final against Andy Murray.