After Ending Haircut Drought, Raonic Fires Into Acapulco Second Round
Milos Raonic defeated Tommy Paul 7-6(6), 6-4 on Tuesday evening to reach the second round of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC. Perhaps just as notably, the Canadian got a haircut!
Due to safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, the former World No. 3 had not had locks trimmed since before leaving for Australia last year.
“I actually felt safe to do it and I found somebody who had been as safe as me and I sort of went through with it,” Raonic said. “Sometimes I was a little bit too embarrassed walking out of the house the way I was, so I felt like it maybe it was time for a haircut.”
[WATCH LIVE 2]The fourth seed hit 13 aces and overcame 10 double faults to battle past Paul after one hour and 49 minutes. Raonic was broken twice, but he had enough firepower to move into the second round, in which he will play German Dominik Koepfer.
“It’s really good. I haven’t played since Australia, so to come here, play a good match against him and do a lot of things well, I have to be very happy with and it also gives me some things that I can do better for tomorrow,” Raonic said. “I look forward to the next challenge.”
In other action, sixth seed Fabio Fognini ousted countryman Stefano Travaglia 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 26 minutes. The nine-time ATP Tour titlist went winless in two previous ATP Head2Head meetings against Travaglia, but he broke serve four times to advance.
Fognini helped Italy to the ATP Cup final last month and then reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, where he lost against Rafael Nadal. The World No. 17 will play Cameron Norrie for a spot in the quarter-finals, after the Brit’s 6-3, 6-3 win over Stefan Kozlov.