The Turning Point That Redefined Canadian Tennis
The 2026 PIF ATP season has just restarted, but the tour will continue with one less player. Milos Raonic, the six-foot-five maple giant who made himself a household Open Era name, has called an end to his career in a social media post. One of the most distinctive ones in this era. An active and dangerous competitor in what many call the most competitive and cut-throat period of tennis to date, the 2000s Open Era, the Canadian leaves his peers and fans behind, after carving himself into tennis history time and time again. A career that especially paved the way for the sea of Canadian players we see excelling today.
Arrival on Tour
Wielding a booming serve and forehand that only got bigger as years went by, Raonic turned pro in September of 2008, after quickly changing his mind to decline multiple US tennis scholarships, and his own short-lived commitment to the University of Virginia. He reached inside the Top 100 quickly by 2011, and played both singles and doubles for his first low-level tournaments. His game was a rarity and a welcome refresher at the time; a towering form with a massive and accurate serve, but he had reliable groundstrokes to back up his bite, and he didn’t shy away from rallying.
Establishing Himself Among the Elite
Until 2011, he was a staple in pro tournaments and found a sizeable ranking jump to Number 37, leaving him without the need for wildcards and qualifying in high-tier tournaments or Grand Slams. Through the years, he fought it out with the ‘Big Four’ and the rest of the turbulent Top 50, even grabbing his first title that very year. With his game growing, he stopped playing doubles to focus on his increasingly successful singles career, and more titles followed him. By the end of 2014, the Canadian held four titles, one of them an ATP 500 on US soil, in Washington.
Career Highs and Records
Several titles in his pocket, Raonic was the top-ranked Canadian player for many years, and the lone one in the Top 50 other than his friend and compatriot, Vasil Pospisil, with whom he played doubles frequently for both ATP events and international team competitions. Major tournaments saw him going deeper into the draw. He hit serves that reached record-breaking numbers, 155/mph, and his regular serves didn’t fall too far behind. Regarded as a serve master to many players and experts alike, he holds several service-related records; currently the record holder for the most aces hit in a three-set match, and currently ranked third of all time for the most service games won.
Other feats that spread his name were his consistent performances in helping Team Canada in Davis Cups and Hopman Cups, helping put them on the stage with a national ranking high enough to participate. He was instrumental in Canada’s 2011, 2013, and 2018 Davis Cup performances, including the qualifying and then semi-final appearances, and took over as captain of the team in 2018.
Atop all his personal records, he most famously defeated one of the ‘Big Four’, Roger Federer of Switzerland, in the semi-finals of the 2016 Wimbledon Championship. Stopping the legend in his tracks was the first time a Canadian ever reached the finals and ended the Swiss’ 11 consecutive Wimbledon semi-final wins. It also kept Federer from defending the championship, which he won for the fifteenth time the year before, a record in itself. Raonic would later lose to Sir Andy Murray of Great Britain in straight sets.
Lasting Legacy Beyond Titles
Though he had his large successes, the Canadian suffered the ailments that being a towering powerhouse on tour offered. His career was gradually forced to slow by a series of injuries. A slip on the grass in Wimbledon 2011 cut his season short with a hip injury that required surgery. 2014 saw him miss several weeks of the tour with an ankle injury; the same injury would resurface to stop him again in 2016, and he suffered more assorted injuries, including minor bone injuries and muscle tears. The Maple Missile retired from matches early in the last few years of his career, his last match in 2024.
Raonic acknowledged those challenges in his retirement statement, noting that “the physical demands of the tour made it increasingly difficult to compete at the level I expected of myself.” It was a measured reflection of a career repeatedly disrupted by physical setbacks rather than a lack of competitive ability.
His lengthy and successful career saw a boom in new young Canadian talent entering both men’s and women’s tennis. Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime, 2021 US Open finalist, Leylah Fernandez, and US Open 2019 champion Bianca Andreescu all came up and reigned even as Raonic’s own career slowed. He steps away at 34 years old and is a foundational figure in the rise of Canadian tennis.
